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V9" 







THE GREAT TRIAL 



OR, 



THE GENIUS OF ClYILIZATION 
BROUGHT TO JUDGMEiNT. 



BY A. 0. HAEIfESS. 




THE MISSION OF TRUTH. 



To wake on earth the human soul, 

A power tyrants can't control, 

Nor slavery's shackles bind ; 

Through freedom's realms it loves to roam, 

Its idyl is a cottage home, 

Its lightning is the mind. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PUBLISHED BY BARCLAY & CO., 

No. 21 North Seventh Street. 
1873. 



THE GREAT TRIAL. 



/ T < ? '?' 



i i. i 



THE GREAT TRIAL, 



THE GENIUS OF CIVILIZATION BROUGHT TO 
JUDGMENT. 



i«ov 9di ai ^KOTT^aoO "io JoA oi ^ailnooos l>'ji9*aji 



>;»j. -!u: »v 



BY 

A. c. HARisrEsa 



imzu' 



18 7 3. 






>-v« 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 

A. C. HARNESS, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



DEDICATION. 



TO MARY. 



Dbxt him not, Mary, 

Confess him ; 
Deny him not, mother, 

But bless him. 
A picture is this boy 
Of thy youth's tender joy, 
When all thy life was innocence, 
And Heaven's kind beneficence 
Imprinted on my kindled heart 
This image lovely as thou art. 
Until my quick and burning brain 
In travail felt a mother's pain. 



A^- 



lU 



Deny him not, Mary, ^ ; 

Confess him ; luo'J 

Deny him not, mother, -if fn<[ 

But bless him.. 
He is thy darling boy, 
The child of youth's first joy. 
The darling of thy youth and beauty, 
A tried sentinel found on duty. 
Who watched through all that midnight gloom, 

And waited where the dead were sleeping ; 
He watched and wept at freedom's tomb 

While freedom's friends were weeping. 

V 



DEDICATION. 



Deny him not, Mary, 

Confess him; 
Deny him not, mother. 

But bless him. 
The \Katchman tells the night, 
The niorn is Pawning bright. 
Hark ! hark ! 'tis freedom's song of glory. 
Which tells to earth the joyous story, 
That freedom's dead shall live again 

(They are not dead but only sleeping). 
And laughter ring along the plain 

Where freedom's friends are weeping. 



4.1€ ,)oo m\ 
Deny him not, Mary, .,^ „,-)„, 

Confess him ; 
Deny him not, mother, 

But bless him. • ^— ^ ^_: 4,^^^.,;,! ,\ 
Behold his little feet, .,,, ^-jfj^M^T yA) to 
And the deed with joy greet, / 

With buoyant, boyish speed & running. 
And candor ever free from cunning, 
And see them mount the rampart's height 
Which tyrants built in freedom's night. 
And wave above their tyranny 
The Flag of blood-bought Liberty, 



Deny him not, Mary, , -I 

Confess him ; "i J snalaoD 

Deny him not, mother, •• '^ ' '''-^ -rn^Q 
But bless him. 

Though earth-born is thy boy. 

Heaven watched his birth with joy. 

And sweet, sweet angelic minstrelsy 

Did welcome him with its melody. 

He brings glad tidings, Love and Peace, 
; -,. Of good for all and good for each ; 

For Zion's king is come to reign. 

To build Jerusalem again. 

vi 



CONTEN"TS. 



PAGE 

The First Witness 22 

The Second Witness 74 

The Third Witness . , , . , . . , 117 

The Fourth Witness 218 

The Fifth Witness 269 

The Sixth Witness 294 

The Seventh Witness 350 



(vii) 



THE GREAT TRIAL, 



THE GENIUS OF CIVILIZATION BROUGHT TO JUDGMENT. 



Not long ago I was traveHng through one of the 
large cities of the country looking at the many sights, 
which are both curious and entertaining to a man from 
the country. The hubbub, the noise, the jumble of men 
and animals, and vehicles of every description, confuse 
not a little the rustic mind, which is in the habit of seeing 
all these things assorted, and each one occupying its own 
place. How vividly the world with all its unevenness and 
injustice comes before you in a city ! Nothing, however, 
struck me so forcibly, as the marked contrast between 
the different classes and conditions of mankind. Not far 
apart stand palaces and hovels. Here you see wealth 
with all its extravagant dissipations, its silly fashions, 
and gaudy show ; there you see poverty in rags and 
wretchedness. When you see on the one hand the beg- 
gar in his looped and windowed raggedness, and on the 
other the bondautocrat in his palatial residence with its 
princely surroundings, you can hardly believe that they 
are both made of the same dust. The daughter of the 
bondautocrat, arrayed in the gayest style of fashion, 
sweeps carelessly by the beggar-woman, whose tattered 
rags hardly serve the purposes of decency*. Chariots 
gilded with costly ornaments, and drawn by sleek, fiery 
steeds, dash by the dray-cart with its toilsome luggage, 
as if it were a hearse bearing some vile contagion to the 
grave. Palatial halls, adorned with elegant furniture, ring 
with festive merriment; while close beside these, garrets 
and cellars, crammed with the wretched, moan out sighs 
A* 9 



10 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

of despair. Surely these beings do not all belong to the 
same brotherhood. These happy children of fortune must 
be celestial beings. They have only come on a visit to 
this lower world to give its inhabitants some notion of 
the glories of the world they inhabit. Only the poor, 
friendless children of toil belong to this earth ; its dust 
and sweat cling to them. The wretched too belong to 
earth, for it drinks up their tears. How much your no- 
tion will be changed by a little better acquaintance with 
the two! Go to the bondautocrat and give him half of 
your property to get money for the other half, in order 
to relieve yourself from some crushing misfortune, and 
he will not exhibit the least sign of gratitude. On the 
contrary, this cold-hearted, soulless creature will try to 
persuade you, that you are under obligations of eternal 
friendship to him. How will his eyes gloat over this new 
heap of earthly trash I How his soul bows down to 
worship this filthy idol ! How does it glory in the pros- 
pect of having goods laid up for many days I How 
sweetly does it say to itself, "eat, drink and be merry"! 
How now, why art thou so pale ? why dost thou tremble, 
proud, unfeeling man ? Hark, hark, that dread sum- 
mons I " Thou fool, this night thy soul will be required 
of thee." The beggar's cry, "give me a penny," startles 
me from my reverie. My heart turns me round to answer 
the piteous cry. Poor, blind beggar, how many pass heed- 
lessly by I Have they heard thy cry so often that they 
have become indifferent to it ? or have they never heard 
it? I at least'am. thy brother mortal and will give thee 
a penny. 

But stop — that uniform— he has been a soldier. He 
was my enemy. He killed my brother, the last one I ha^ 
in the world, the youngest born, the pet of our widowed 
mother. He burned our houses and barns, and made our 
country, once so rich and beautiful, a desert. He robbed 
me of my liberties — my birthright,— a heritage which my 
father and his father had won in a common struggle 
against a common enemy. Anger came into my heart, 
and I turned away. But I had not gone far when a 
voice whispered to me, " If thine enemy hunger feed him, 
if he thirst give him drink." I went back and dropped the 



TUE GREAT TRIAL. \\ 

coveted penny into the beggar's box. How sweetly fell 
on my ears the fervid, earnest " God bless you" which 
came from the beggar's lips, ay from the beggar's heart 1 
When I saw those sightless orbs rolling heavenward as 
if, though blind, they could see the benediction going up 
to the Father of all mercies, ah, then I knew the rich 
man's home is on earth, the beggar's home is in heaven. 

Few, few will think of thee now any more; 

But few will attend and weep at thy grave : 
Because thoii wast old, and friendless, and poor, 

Adversity's prey and misery's slave. 

And yet had life's morn a promise for thee, 
Its grassy green fields and its fragrant flowers, 

An orient sun and friends all aglee. 

Wild visions of love and its blissful hours. 

But clouds have obscured the light of that sun ; 

Hands, which helped build for thee love's shady bowers, 
Have scattered their leaves as if it were fun, 

And strewed thy lone pathway with hope's withered flowers. 

How drear to thee now appears earth's rocky shore ! 

A desert where not a wild flower is found 
To catch thy last tear — thou 'It soon weep no more — 

And distill its remembrance above thy low mound. 

How welcome to thee '11 be the roar and the surge 
Of death's dark wave when it breaks on that shore ! 

For earth will deny thee a requiem dirge, 

Because thou wast old, and friendless, and poor. 

Thrice welcome to thee '11 be the ebb of its tide, 
And quick as a dream will thy voyage be o'ei 

To realms, mystic realms, where spirits abide 
And richest of treasures remain for the poor. 

It was then a feeling of indescribable joy came over 
me. I fell into a sweet sleep, and dreamed a dream. I 
thought I was passing through a country which I had 
once known well. Some things were familiar to me still ; 
but so many cLnnges had been made, sad changes, that 
I almost persuaded myself that either the past or the 
present was a dream. The fields which were once green 
with the verdure of prosperity had become a waste. The 
forests, whose leafy hands the mysterious spirit of love 
once waved to beckon the breeze, had disappeared. The 



12 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

old-fashioned mansion-houses, large, airy, and as spacious 
as the hospitality which had once made them the abodes 
of pleasure, were heaps of ruins. Every place seemed to 
be neglected but the grave-yards. These only had pros- 
pered, and gathered into their garners of death the un- 
ripe harvest, which was the hope of the land. Many had 
gathered there to weep. The grandmother was there, 
the mother, the widow, the orphan planting flowers, 
which seemed to wither and fade, so poor was the land 
become, and so burning was the sun which blazed in the 
brazen sky. 

I watched until they were all gone but one. She bent 
over a grave from which an unpropitious sky withheld 
its dews, and shed upon it a copious shower of tears, sing- 
ing, in a low, sweet voice, these lines : 

Beneath affection's shower of tears 

Remembrance' sweetest flowers will bloom, 

And on the waste of long, long years 
Shed fragrance round thy lowly tomb. 

I drew near her, and tried to comfort her. She thanked 
me for my kind words, and was grateful for my sym- 
pathy. At length I asked her why she did not return 
home. Startled at the mention of that word home, she 
stared at me a moment and then answered : ** Alas, I 
have no home. The red siroccos of war have swept my 
home away. I have no bread, and have come here with 
my babe, my last earthly hope, to die." The child which 
she held in her arms — and I just then noticed it for the 
first time — had a sickly, pale, white look, like marble. 
So low was its breathing that only the quick touch of a 
mother's love could feel the little stream of life, which was 
fast ebbing away. And the little blood which had passed 
over her own pallid, sorrowful face when I first spoke to 
her, was now gone, and there stood before me (horrible to 
tell!) a skeleton, — a shadow of a human being. 

Did I dream, or was it a ghost ? I trembled lest other 
graves (and there were many around me) should open 
and send forth their ghostly tenants. With a woman's 
quick perception she saw the cause of my consternation, 
and assured me that she was mortal. ** I have had but 



THE GREAT TRIAL. Ig 

one wish to live,'* she added, "this long time, and that 
was for the sake of my child. Soon it will cease to need 
a mother's care," she continued, " and then I will need 
no longer the sympathy of the world. Grief and famine 
would have carried me to my grave long ago ; but I could 
not die so long as I could feel this little heart beat," point- 
ing to her babe. 

Whilst I was wondering what I should do to relieve 
this poor woman, who seemed to be friendless and alone 
in the world, and looking around to see from whence I 
could obtain help, I saw in the distance many large cities. 
They seemed to be situated on beautiful eminences, high 
above this low valley ; for although I have omitted to 
speak of it before, the place we were in was a low narrow 
valley. Clouds hung constantly over it, so that one 
could not see far before him. It was only when I looked 
toward those shining cities that I could see a great way. 
The brightest sunshine was in them, and their glory daz- 
zled my eyes. Just as I was setting out in the direction 
of the largest and apparently the most splendid of them 
all, I saw one descending the hill on which it stood, and 
coming toward us. It seemed to me — but maybe it was 
only because I wished it — that he was carrying some- 
thing which looked like a basket. At all events, I made 
up my mind to wait until he should come in speaking 
distance, or turn off in some new direction. To my great 
joy he came on right straight to us. He told me before 
I had time to ask him, that he had come down to feed and 
comfort the poor of this land. Indeed, I believed as much 
before he told me, for he had at least the outward marks 
of a good man. His grave face and saintly air bespoke 
a man of the priestly order, and he, moreover, carried 
under his arm the Bible. 

Then came into my mind many beautiful texts which 
I have often read in that book; one especially did impress 
itself on me : " Love thy enemy;" for the habit this man 
wore marked him as one of the people who were the ene- 
mies of those who dwelt in the valley. I told him of the 
poor woman at the grave, and he started at once to her. 
He lifted out of his basket a piece of bread and other 
tempting eatables, which I supposed he would at once 

2 



l^ THE GREAT TRIAL. 

hand to the woman. But to my great surprise, he laid 
them back, aud offered her a scroll. 

Never shall 1 forget the picture of agony which her face 
presented when she read this paper. The sad, weak smile 
which lit up her face when she first saw the bread was 
gone: a ghastly paleness took its place. Her trembling 
hand, as if paralyzed, let fall the scroll which she had 
grasped so eagerly a moment before. She turned away 
from the good man, as he seemed to be; and in that new 
direction one stood before her of frightful aspect. This 
new visitor seemed to be not a man, but rather a skeleton 
of iron. His face wore a grim, unearthly smile, which 
seemed to be in mockery of her woe ; and the hand he 
extended to her seemed not like a human hand, for the 
fingerswere joints of steel opening and closing on powerful 
springs.* But wonders, it seemed, would never cease in 
this strange place ; for when the woman saw this horrible 
phantom, her countenance grew bright, and her whole 
face became radiant with beauty. Never before, not even 
at Hymen's altar, where a thousand visions of beauty 
throng the mind of the bride and dance in airy shapes on 
her sweet face, have I seen a child of earth so transformed 
into beauty. Her delicate hand, now white as marble, 
was seized by that iron grip, and the joints of the skeleton 
phantom made a rattling noise as he led her away. They 
had not gone far, when they came to a dark, narrow lane, 
where they both disappeared. 1 turned to the good man 
(for such I still took him to be) and asked what this 
meant. But he seemed to be as much disappointed as I 
was. With a fierce look on his countenance, and in an 
angry voice, he said to me, " Let her go." I sat down on 
a rock hard by, and, covering my face with my hands, 
wept over the woes of the children of men. 

While I wept one called to me ; and when I had un- 
covered my face I saw before me one in the shape of a 
man, but his face shone with the brightest of unearthly 
glory. I trembled with fear, and bowed down before 
him in the attitude of devotion. He lifted me up, and 
bade me worship God who made the heavens and earth, 
the seas and fountains of water. He said that he was a 
prophet of the Almighty, sent to reveal his will to the 



THE GREAT TRIAL. 15 

children of men, and to comfort them with the promises 
of future good. His name was the Word of God. Feel- 
ing somewhat reassured, I besought him to explain to me 
the wonderful things which I had seen that day. He 
began by telling me that the place we were in was the 
Valley of Humiliation. It lies on the way which leads 
to the better land, and travelers going thither must 
necessarily pass this way. The great king who owns 
this country has another and a better for those of his 
subjects who are true and faithful. They must needs 
come this way, because a great river runs between this 
country and that. So deep is this river, and so swift its 
current, that it is impassable at any other point except 
just where this valley strikes it. The wisdom of the 
king with all his council was employed in making the 
passage secure at this point ; nor can any one, not even 
those next to him in wisdom and power, cross over at 
any other place. I asked what cities those were in the 
distance, which were so beautiful, and who were the in- 
habitants, — especially the one who had just gone back 
from the valley ; for the good man, so called, had left us, 
and was then ascending a hill which led to one of those 
cities. These, he said, were cities of Vanity, which Pride 
had built on the hills of Prosperity. The people you see 
in this valley once lived in cities like these. But a great 
storm came. Its whirlwinds were devouring flames which 
consumed those cities, and destroyed all their wealth and 
beauty. Indeed, so intensely hot were those winds of 
fire that they even melted down the hills on which those 
cities stood. So only this narrow valley is left, veiled in 
the clouds of sorrow and sprinkled over with the bitter 
ashes of disappointment. The old men and women and 
children, at least many of them, escaped this storm because 
they hid out of its way ; but the young, and the brave, 
and the strong who attempted to withstand it were de- 
stroyed. These hillocks are their graves, for their friends 
have gathered them from the different places where the 
storm overtook them. The poor woman you saw weep- 
ing over that grave had lost everything by the storm. 
Her property was all destroyed, and she had come with 
her infant to weep in despair at the grave of her husband, 



16 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

who too had fallen ifi the storm. Her cupboard was 
empty, and she had come here with her babe to die. The 
good man (as he seemed to be) who came down from that 
city is the chief priest of a sect who are called Pharisees ; 
you have doubtless read of them in the Scriptures. They 
like to be considered as the saints of the Lord. They 
make long prayers, and wear long faces. They preach 
in fine churches, and for rich congregations who can pay 
them big salaries. They make themselves all things to 
all men, that they may by some means get a hold of their 
money. They encompass sea and land to make a prose- 
lyte, and when he is made they make him twofold more 
the fit child of the devil than themselves. They are 
scrupulous in exacting from others a rigid conformity to 
the ordinances of the church ; especially do they exact from 
all tithes of mint, cummin, and anise. Every Sunday 
is desecrated by attention to the church's secular matters, 
indeed is specially set apart to attend to the financial 
affairs of the church. The preacher you saw and mistook 
for a good man is the chief priest of this sect of Pharisees ; 
for he preaches in a bigger church and to a richer con- 
gregation than any of his brothers. He gets too a larger 
salary, and draws larger crowds. He has cultivated a 
popular style of oratory, a theatrical air, and a clownish 
wit. The people of this country have been cheated and 
humbugged so long, that a man is esteemed a clever fel- 
low in proportion to his capacity to make asses of them ; 
and so debauched have their moral notions become that 
vulgarity is held in the highest repute. Hence a man 
who can say the most filthy thing is held in the highest 
esteem, and looked upon as the wittiest man. This old 
Pharisee has won a pre-eminent fame, by desecrating the 
pulpit with vulgar, clownish airs and filthy, lascivious 
jests, such as would grace the lowest comedy. For instance, 
a short time ago he said the pretty Caucasian women of 
America were only fit to be used as a bait to catch Sambo 
and Cuffy. The dupes of this old reprobate who applaud 
or hiss from force of habit, rather than from sense or 
feeling, cried out, what a smart thing! But when some- 
body else told them that stuff was not wit, they com- 
menced hissing, and at once the polluted old Pharisee tried 



THE GREAT TRIAL. H 

to lie out of it. This was considered a very creditable 
performance by his people. Indeed, it is considered by 
the priesthood of this generation, just as it is by their poli- 
ticians, a clever thing to do a dirty trick, and get out of it 
by telling a big lie. This old Pharisee (whom you mis- 
took for a good man) had come down among the poor 
people of this desolated country in the name of charity ; he 
had bread along, but only gave it on certain conditions. 
That poor, starving woman had to sign that scroll before 
he would give her bread. The following is a copy of it : 
** I, A. B., do solemnly swear that the l|ite war, brought 
on this country by a run-mad political faction for the 
purpose of destroying its ancient democracy and build- 
ing a military despotism on its ruins, for the purpose of 
destroying its freedom and establishing in lieu thereof 
civil and religious persecution , for the purpose of chang- 
ing the condition of the negro from being the slave 
of man individually to the slave of the government, so 
that he might be used as a political power to enslave the 
white man; for the purpose of creating a vast public 
debt, — the great foundation-stone of monarchy and aris- 
tocracy ; for the purpose of making a mongrel race of 
mules by mixing the poor white trash with the negro, so 
that our bondautocratic masters may have a better breed 
of slaves to serve them, and better mules to bear their 
burdens of debt and taxation ; for the purpose of raising 
a large army and navy, — that power which tyrants may 
rely on to defend their usurpations, and which an aristoc- 
racy may trust to defend their robberies and plunderings 
of the people at large ; and finally, for the purpose of re- 
modeling our government, and making it like those grand 
and powerful nationalities of Europe (Russia, Prussia, 
France, and England), where a thousand poor people live 
hard and work hard to gratify the idleness, the dissipa- 
tions, the whims and caprices of one, — was a holy and 
just war, and all who opposed it, or who do now oppose 
its plans and purpose, are traitors and rebels. I believe 
further, that my husband, who spent all his property and 
his life iu opposition to this war and its purposes, was a 
traitor and rebel ; and I will teach our babe to believe 
this, and curse his father's memory. I, A. B., do further 

2* 



Ig THE GREAT TRIAL. 

solemnly abjure my faith in the Bible, and the God of the 
Bible. I believe in pharisaism, which means mesmer- 
ism, spiritualism, free-loveism, woman's rights, mongrel- 
ism (especially for " poor white trash"), divorce, child- 
murder, lying, stealing, adultery, fornication, hatred, 
revenge, war, and everything which is contrary to the 
charity, the benevolence, and purity of the Christian re- 
ligion. I do further swear that I have no faith in the 
God who made me, and in whose hands my breath is^ 
but I believe in Mammon, the golden god which our holy 
hypocritical priosthood has made for us to worship. I 
believe our Mammon hath power to tear down the pillars 
which support the throne of the King of heaven, and to 
establish his empire in the earth forever. I do further 
swear that I will honor and serve this god, and be loyal 
to his faithful servants, the priests, the politicians, and 
bondautocrats." 

This is the scroll which the good man, so-called, offered 
to the poor, starving woman. Is it any wonder that she 
looked wildly around her for some escape from the power 
of this devil? Is it any wonder that she hailed with 
expressions of joy (in that hour of her utmost need) that 
skeleton phantom, death ? — to the guilty, the king of 
terrors ; to the innocent, the kind liberator from the 
tyranny and persecutions of man. But why that smile 
of trkimph, that gleam of ineffable joy in her face ? I, 
who have promised never to leave or forsake those who 
put their trust in me, stood behind that skeleton phan- 
tom and held up to her eyes the telescope of faith, and 
through it she saw the promised land, the paradise of 
God. There will she hunger no more, neither thirst 
any more ; for the Lamb in the midst of the throne shall 
feed her, and lead her unto living fountains of water, and 
God shall wipe away all tears from her eyes. 

I asked him why the Almighty, who had power to 
prevent it, permitted such things to be done ; why he 
suffered the strong to trample the weak under their feet ; 
why he permitted war with all its ravages, its wastes, 
and its desolations ; why he permitted the weak and the 
innocent, like the poor woman at the grave, to be insulted 
and mocked ; and, above all, why he permitted these crimes 



THE GREAT TRIAL. 19 

to be done in his name, and in the name of his religion. 
He answered, that one of the hardest things to make 
man believe is his own depravity. God knows that man 
is wiek^, and could nip his wicked designs in the very 
bud ; but how then would man know his own wicked- 
ness ? Let man be free to act, and then the world can 
see his evil deeds. And then, too, these wrongs against 
his fellow-man are tenfold worse when they are consid- 
ered as sins against God. A man might plead some ex- 
cuse for injuring his fellow-man. His fellow-man may be 
his enemy, and plotting evil against him; he may hold 
towards him feelings of malice and revenge. God can- 
not hold such feelings : his heart is full of love and com- 
passion for man ; he offers to him his friendship, his pro- 
tection, with all the blessings of earth and heaven. God 
permits these things to convince his intelligent creatures 
both of his mercy and of his justice. If he would exe- 
cute swift judgment on the wicked, if he would cut them 
off before they had fully declared their plans and pur- 
poses, the world would never have seen the deep de- 
pravity of human nature, as it is seen by the Deity. 
Neither would the world understand the justice of God 
in denouncing such awful penalties against the wicked. 
Indeed, if a flash of lightning struck down everybody 
who sinned, the world would soon be depopulated. Every 
man will be judged according to his deeds, whether they 
be good or evil. Then must every man be left free to 
act, to do good or evil, as he may choose. When men 
or nations have made their record, when they have filled 
up the measure of their iniquity, then the judgment 
comes. And who shall be able to stand in the great day 
of his wrath ? God's thoughts are not your thoughts, 
nor are his ways your ways ; he never leaves nor for- 
sakes those who trust in him ; he never suffers them to 
be tempted above what they are able to bear. The 
wicked have power over the body only. They may bury 
the clay part, but the living spark, the soul, is inextin- 
guishable. The canting Pharisee, who insulted the poor 
friendless woman at her husband's grave, may spend his 
life in prosperity ; for big pay may sell a cheap religion to 
the bondautocratic thieves and robbers, whose slave he 



20 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

is ; there may be no bands in his death. Ephraim. is 
joined to his idols: let him alone; Grod, in his anger, 
gives up the wicked to a strong delusion, to believe a He ; 
their last sleep is as gentle as the close of a summfeV's day. 
But where shall their awaking be ? When you remember 
the beautiful triumph of the poor widow woman, can 
you help exclaiming in your heart, " Let me die the 
death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his"? 
It was an adage among heathen nations that the mill of 
the gods grinds slow. In those times it took nations 
a long time to fill up the measure of their iniquities ; the 
devil did not have the implements to work with he has now, 
— gunpowder, steam, electricity, and so on. It then took 
wicked nations a long time to make a record ; it was a 
long time before their evil deeds were known to the world. 
Judgment was delayed so that justice might be vindi- 
cated. It is different in these times. The wicked deeds 
of a nation are flashed at lightning speed over the earth. 
The record is soon made up, and then the judgment sets. 
Come with me, and I will show you the Great Trial. 

I looked, and lo ! a throne surrounded with clouds and 
darkness, and voices came from it, and thunderings and 
lightnings ; and from that throne descended another throne 
to earth. One sat on the throne which came down to 
earth, clothed in pure white ; and he held in his hand a 
sword, which gleamed like fire. His name was Justice, 
and the sword he held in his hand was called judgment. 
A trumpet sounded from the throne, and many obeyed 
its summons. Among those who came to the sound of 
the trumpet was a woman in princely apparel. She was 
most gorgeously arrayed in costly silks, with rings of gold 
in her ears, and on her fingers. The crown on her head 
was set with sparkling diamonds. Her manner was light 
and frivolous, and her talk was foolish ; although she was 
summoned there to be put on trial for the many charges 
of crime and folly made against her. Even there, in the 
presence of the judgment-seat, she did not refrain from 
dancing and singing foolish songs and making silly jests. 

The name of this grand prisoner was the Genius of 
Civilization. Many witnesses were called to testify 
against her; \ remember the testimony of only a few of 



THE GREAT TRIAL. 21 

tbem. Indeed, many testified at the time, for the judge 
had a number of ministers with him, and each one could 
listen to one of the witnesses and record his testimony. 

But I have omitted to tell of two great personages, 
who attended the prisoner, and were her principal minis- 
ters and advisers. The first was named the State. He 
was a young man who had just passed his youth, and 
made the sober business turn of life ; that period of life 
which is so often miscalled the sensible and practical ; a 
time when love gives place to work, when we look upon 
those who were once bound to us by tender recollections 
and sweet associations as machines to do our threshing 
and reaping at a profitable hire ; that time in life when 
fancy's dreams are banished for cold, cunning calculations, 
made under the glaring gaslight of gold, instead of the 
sweet, genial sunlight of the soul. His person was tall, 
manly, and well-proportioned ; the traces of youthful 
courage and generous pride were still plainly visible, and 
it was truly painful to see them fading under the sinister 
smile of policy ; his manner had evidently been drilled in 
all the etiquette of studied politeness, and his dress had 
both the style and air of diplomacy. The other minister 
was called the Church.* She, like the queen she served, 
was dressed most gorgeously, and decked with costly 
ornaments. And yet was her manner more grave, and 
dignified, and thoughtful. She wore over her face a veil 
called humility ; but through this veil you could discover 
an expression of artfulness and guile ; she looked with 
envious eyes at the crown upon the head of her queen. 
She cast at the queen's other minister lascivious glances, 
and put on when talking with him the most seductive airs. 
Her plot evidently was to seduce the great minister, the 
spouse of the queen, so that she might wear his crown. 

* The church, as a social gathering of Christian people, I love, 
nor does it matter to me by what name it may be called. But popery 
in modern times has drifted back into the superstition of the Middle 
Ages; and protestantism has fallen into that rationalism which sets man 
himself up for a god, and persuades him to deny his Creator. " High 
above all conflict, this hope we can never relinquish ; there will yet arise, 
from the ocean of error, the unity of a conviction, untroubled in its stead- 
fast security, the pure and simple consciousness of the everduring and 
all-pervading presence of God." — Hanke's History of the Popes. 



22 'I'UE GREAT TRIAL. 



THE FIRST WITNESSJ'''^>"'»^^« «rf^^ 

The first witness I saw wore the semblance of Washing- 
ton, and his name was the Genius of Patriotism. He saM : — 

What shall I call them ? I once called them fellow- 
citizens. That term would not be applicable now. 
They have no country to be citizens of. They have 
voted away their country to the priests and poli- 
ticians. Shall I call them patriots ? It Would be a mock- 
ery to call them patriots, who, like Esau, have sold their 
heritage for a mess of pottage. They have exchanged 
the substantial blessings of a good government, justice, 
economy, liberty and prosperity, for Mormonism, free- 
loveism, mesmerism, spiritualism, woman's rights, negro 
suffrage, and miscegenation, i. e. lust, infidelity, insanity, 
folly, crime, chaos, and anarchy. Ten stars blotted out 
from their political constellation, — white silver stars, once 
as bright as the brightest that shone there, stars which 
shed upon the earth the brightest genius of the Caucasian 
race. In their stead they propose to pin to the sky, with 
bayonets, black negro stars. Patriots ! No, let me call 
them slaves. Each one has around his neck a noose with 
a double drawstring ; the preacher has hold of one end, the 
politician pulls the other. Slaves ! yes, I will show them 
their base servility. I will show them that they are but 
the menials of that upstart usurper, the bondautocrat. 
I will show it to them, so that when their children grow 
up — (here a little boy playing close by stopped to listen) 
play on, my little bright-eyed boy ; don't listen to me. 
It will be time enough for thee to know the degradation 
which thy father is preparing for thee many years hence. 
Yes, thou mightest learn it many years hence, and still 
have long enough time to suffer. 

Play on ; I will not show thee the dark and ominous 
cloud which hangs over thy future, lest the bright smile 
which plays on thy innocent, unconscious face, should 



THE FIRST WITNESS. 23 

depart forever. For so plaia does it seem to me, that I 
think even your little eyes, though unused to looking at 
things in the distance, could tell what this cloud means. 
Play on. It will only be a little while until those little 
hands will be toiling to pay back to the bondautocrat the 
money he lent the government to buy thy father, to be sent 
to the war and lose his arm. 'Tis only a thousand dollars. 
The bondautocrat's wife wants a shawl ; 'tis the lady's 
whim and she must have it, even if you should not have 
a dollar left to buy the necessaries of life for the partner 
of your degradation. And there is thy little playfellow ; 
his father fought for thirteen dollars a month, and 
was killed the third month of the service. Thirty-nine 
dollars ! Don't the bondautocracy insure life cheap ? Your 
little orphan playfellow will soon pay that, and then he 
can help you. But what did your father fight for, bleed 
for, die for ? To please the preacher and politician, the 
servile ministers of bondautocracy. What did they fight 
for ? To change nature's laws, to thwart the decrees of 
Heaven, to make the black man white, and the white man 
black. Whither art thou drifting, my boy ? Thy lin- 
eage, thy name, whither is it drifting, my boy ? That 
name which once brought the pretty blush of love to thy 
mother's fair cheek. I remember how, when the blush 
deepened over that pure white skin, the hand of chastity 
chased it away ; and thus did it come and go, blush after 
blush, until passion subsided in the sweet pink-tinted rose 
of virtuous love. Where will be the blush of thy bride, 
my boy? Ask thy father who has been fighting to win 
for thee a negro bride, that beautiful blush hid under the 
thick rhinoceros skin of the negvo. Thy father's bride 
had pretty blue eyes. 

"And as soft was her eye 
As the blue of the sky, 
When morn's distilling its dews from above; 
Its brightness was veiled in the mists of its love." 

Where will be the pure cerulean blue in the eye of thy 
bride ? Mixed and muddled with the cold, glassy glare 
of the negro's eye. Well could thy father say of his 
pretty bride, — 



24 THE GREAT TRIAL, 

"All the stars of heaven ; 
The deep blue noon of night lit by an orb, 
Which looks a spirit, or a spirit's world ; 
The hues of twilight, the sun's gorgeous coming; 
His setting indescribable, which fills 
My eye with pleasant tears, as I behold 
Him sink and feel my heart float softly with him 
Along that western paradise of clouds ; 
The forest shade, the green bough, the bird's voice. 
The vesper bird's, which seems to sing of love: 
All these are nothing to my eyes and heart 
Like Mary's face ; I turn from earth and heaven 
To gaze on it." 

What wilt thou say of thy bride, my boy? the negro 
wench thy father would wed thee to ? 

As black as is her hide, 

So low must be my pride. 
For her smell is as strong as the smell of a skunk; 
How can I wed a negro unless I first get drunk ? 

But thy name, my boy ; thy father's name, that name 
to which thy mother gave her youth, her beauty, her 
obedience, and her love: whither is drifting that name? 
Alas ! I see it on the black tide of miscegenation drift- 
ing to oblivion. You may violate nature's laws, but 
you cannot escape the penalty. God has made your 
race the most beautiful in the world ; and if you attempt 
to destroy that beauty, he will blot you out. Look at 
that filly : how slender and tapering are her legs ; how 
springy her step ; her broad, intelligent forehead, lit by 
big, bright eyes ! Look at her mane, falling in silky 
waves over her neck! How gracefully, too, her tail 
swings in the air! — easily adjusting itself to every new 
position, as if to steady and balance all her actions. 
Among all the animals in the world none is so beautiful. 
Will she consort with the dull, stupid ass? Will she 
consent to be the mother of the slow, servile mule ? See 
how she spurns him with her heels, and then dashes 
wildly over the plains. See how she turns her head 
back, as if in scorn, — hurling at the ugly beast she has 
left in the distance a neigh of proud mockery. With a 
higher and nobler instinct than man's boasted reason, 
she refuses to insult nature by degrading her own being 



THE FIRST WITS ESS. . 25 

and marring lier own beauty. Not 'till man, imbruted 
man (I be^ the brute's pardon, bedeviled man), wal- 
lowed in the filthy mire of licentiousness, and smeared 
all over with the slime of cupidity, until not only his 
reason is perverted, but even the lower instincts of bis 
animal nature are debased and degraded ; I say not till 
man has haltered that filly with his iron curb, and 
chained her f6et with hobbles, will she yield to the em- 
braces of the ugly beast which nature has made for the 
drudgery of servitude. 

But the same almighty power which set bounds to the 
waves of the deep has said to the waves of human folly 
and human crime, thus far shall ye go, and no farther. 
The Creator has denied to this mongrel race the power 
of reproducing its kind. So of all mongrel races. In a 
few years they are lost in extinction. But these anahz- 
ers of nature teach another lesson, which the people of 
this country uiay learn to their own profit. For whom 
is miscegenation intended ? for what class of the people ? 
'Will the pretty daughters of the bondautocrat mai-ry a 
big buck negro ? Will his rich son kiss the thick, husky 
lips of a negro wench ? Hardly, I think. In this money- 
loving age the one can buy a lover of her own choosing ; 
the other too can buy beauty and accomplishments in his 
own circle, and a half-dozen pretty mistresses among the 
poor besides. For whom then is it intended ? Why, 
who is it that bears all the wrongs of society? Who 
has to dress plainer, eat less, and work harder to pay the 
taxes? Who* has to go to the battle-field when war 
comes, to suffer, to bleed, and to die? on whose backs 
are these curses saddled? The bondautocracy's ? Was 
there ever such a war before as the one which is just 
over ? Were taxes ever so high ? Did you ever see the 
bondautocrats dress so finely and fare so sumptuously ? 
Did you ever see them before spend so lavishly, and still 
have so much to spend ? Did 3^ou meet their sons in the 
ranks of the army ? How many of them do you suppose 
got killed in the war? How many are hobbling about 
on crutches ? How many of them are going around witii 
one or both arms off, begging bread ? Think you that, if 
thev were all mustered into line, that vou have a corpo- 
B 3 



26 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

ral's guard ? I think I have a guess what class of the 
people miscegenation is intended for. But if I tell, it will 
offend the bondautocrat and his servile ministers, the 
preachers, and the politicians. I happened to hear the 
bargain which was struck between them. I heard the 
bondautocrat say to the priest and politician, — 

" These asses (negro slaves) are pretty good beasts of 
burden ; but they are too slow for the times. They did 
very well in old fogy times, when everything had to be 
toted or hauled in wagons. But, my dear sirs, in this 
age of steam and electricity they are too slow, entirely 
too slow. Besides, they are too ignorant and improvi- 
dent ; their slow speed and wasteful habits take too much 
out of the net profits. With such unprofitable animals as 
these it takes at least three generations to become a million- 
aire. My good friends, can this matter be remedied ? 
I call you my friends, because I believe you are." 

" Yes, sir" (both speaking at once), " we are your 
friends to the full length of your purse-strings." 

** Well, m}^ good friends, my purse-strings are pretty 
long ; and if }• ou can correct this evil, they will be much 
longer, sirs, much longer." 

"We have already," answered the politician, "pre- 
pared the way for this business. Tbe negro slaves have 
been set free ; and now if we can manage to get a 
cross between them and the 'poor white trash,' we will 
have just such a set of slaves as you desire. A race 
of mules, sir, between the ass and the horse, more 
sprightly and active, sir, than the ass, and more dura- 
ble and submissive to burdens than the horse. My 
friend the preacher, and myself, have agreed upon a 
plan which will make the thing a certain success. It 
shall be my business to have laws enacted requiring the 
herd-pens (free schools), where the colts are trained, to be 
common, so that the colts of the horses (white children) 
and the colts of the asses (negro children) shall be trained 
together. By a law of association things which are 
kept constantly together will assimilate in disposition. 
temper, and feeling. Besides that, the tendency of all 
earthly things is downward to the dust. The young of all 
animals are more ready to catch vicious habits than good 



THE FIRST WITNESS. 27 

ones. Now, sir, upon these two maxims in morals we 
have based our calculations that the horse colts will soon 
become so much like the ass colts, that tlie natural 
repugnance which the Creator has established between 
them will be so far overcome, that we will have no diffi- 
culty in making them cohabit with each other. Thus 
jousee, good master bondautocrat, we will furnish you 
with a race of mules much more serviceable than the asses, 
and much more tractable than the horses. My friend, 
the priest here, who will have the superintendence of 
those herd-pens, will order a course of training for these 
colts suitable to the purpose." 

'• You just bring the colts all together," answered the 
preacher, " and I will be answerable for the mixing. I 
have in my theological chest a powder which will act 
like a charm. You can both testify how successful I 
have been in mediciniug the old horses. Equality, sugared 
with universal suffrage, I have administered to them with 
the happiest results. I have laughed in my sleeve, gentle- 
men, and I have no doubt you have too, to see how 
easily these animals are deceived ; how willing they 
are to take the shadow for the substance, the mere prom- 
ise for the thing itself. Especially have I been amused 
to see how you lead them around. Mr. Politician, I have 
seen many of them haltered and led to the polls by others 
to vote; and although they were voting the sentiments 
of others, and voting away their own liberties, yet did 
they prance around and neigh as proudly as if they were 
free, and had no halters on. I then thought to myself, 
"Well, it won't take long to mnke asses of you. ludeed, 
although they still retained the characteristics of horses, 
the noise they made bore a strong resemblance to the 
braying of the ass. Now the new powder I have is only 
the" expressed essence of the old powder, equality; but 
its chief beauty is its name, miscegenation. It is a most 
admirable thing. In the first place, it is new; and in 
these times, when every change means reform, that is a 
great deal. I know plenty of people who would be dis- 
gusted with mongrelism ; but they think miscegenatiou 
the sum of excellence. How much there is now a days 
in big, high-sounding words ! I've preached many a ser- 



28 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

mon to these people, which did not contain a single 
thought, — a mere jumble of big words harmoniously ar- 
ranged, smoothly connected and musically spoken; and 
although they did not learn a thing from them, for there] 
was nothing in them to learn, yet did they praise them 
to the very echo. Only the other day I preached a sermon, 
which I prefaced with the declaration that nobody could 
be a Christian who did not understand theology. My 
discourse was made up of a number of fine sentences 
which I had picked out of the writings of learned divines 
who had written in defense of our sect. Indeed, I had 
to laugh at the thing myself, for it looked like Joseph's 
coat of many colors ; nay, worse, for the different patches 
had been patched on without regard to either harmony or 
contrast. Big and little, white and gray, blue and green, 
were pinned together just as I had grabbed them iip out 
of my old sermon-bag; really, I don't know which 
amused me most, the folly of the sermon, or the igno- 
rance and credulity of my hearers. They called it splen- 
did, grand, beautiful, eloquent. I heard afterward that 
one of the congregation objected to it, and made this 
very plausible complaint of it, that he didn't understand 
theology, and therefore could not be a Christian. He 
went on to controvert it by some quotations from that 
old fable-book, the Bible. He said that he had learned 
from that old book, that the way of the Christian, though 
but a narrow path, is yet so plain that a wayfaring man, 
even if he be a fool, need not err therein. He said that 
he had further read that the Author of Christianity him- 
self, when on earth having met with one who was blind, 
touched his eyes, and immediately the sight of the blind 
man was restored. It gave such joy to the blind to be 
able to see, that he went about telling all whom he met 
and praising his deliverer. But the scribes and Pharisees 
said to the man whose sight had been restored. Who was 
he that opened* your eyes, and how did he do it ? tell us 
the science, the philosophy of the thing ; make the things 
plain according to our doctrines, our theology. He an- 
swered them, 1 neither know who he was nor how he did 
it; but this I know, that whereas I was blind now I 
see. But the Pharisees reviled him, and cast him out 



THE FIRST WITNESS. 29 

because he believed his sight was restored, when he 
could not tell who did it and how it was done. I was 
not a little disturbed," said the priest, " when I saw mj 
good horses so closely-cornered. I was afraid this fellow 
would put some bad notions into their head, and they 
would not be so serviceable to me as they had been. How- 
ever, I was soon relieved, for directly they laid back their 
ears, and kicked the fellow away as an infidel and heretic." 
The politician smiled, and remarked that answer Was 
very conclusive, if not very logical. 

" My dear sir," answered the priest, " the conclusion 
is the end of logic, as it is of everything else." 

" I was just thinking," said the politician, " that it looks 
a little inconsistent in your Protestant sects, who were 
born of heresy, and have lived all your lives under the 
damning curse of excommunication, to be casting out 
heretics." 

" People who live in glass houses," said the priest, 
" ought not to throw stones. I observe that nowadays 
when you can't answer the arguments of your political 
opponents in your deliberative bodies, that you call them 
rebels and traitors, and then expel them. You yourself 
voted to expel a member of Congress just in the manner 
stated above. Now, if I remember rightly, you told me 
once that your grandfather fell at the battle of Lexing- 
ton, just after the loyal General Pitcairn, of his majesty's 
service, had called out to him and his comrades, ' Lay 
down your arms and surrender, you rebels and traitors I' 
If we commit the same offense, we have at least some 
excuse for it. Our loyalty is a little older than yours, — 
over two centuries. Yours is scarcely more than three- 
score and ten ; the limit of human life. Indeed, I know 
among you some of the most noisy and clamorous at that, 
whose loyalty was very questionable at the breaking out 
of the late war." 

" My friend, you speak with a good deal of warmth : 
coolly," replied the politician. 

"Sir, you must excuse me," replied the priest, still a 
little tart. "I can bear to-be told of my faults by an 
honest man ; but to be lectured by one who has com- 
mitted the same ofifense, and that too in a more flagrant 

3* 



30 ~ THE GREAT TRIAL. 

and outrageous manner, is enough to nettle the patience 
of a saint." 

"And that," said the politician, smiling, "is more than 
you profess to be." 

This hit was so palpable that the priest laughed, and 
then remarked: "My dear sir, let us leave off this un- 
profitable discussion, and turn to the herd-pen business. 
This," he added, "if you will allow me to use that 
eminently philosophical, practical, and expressive phrase 
of the times, will, I think, pay better." 

" My dear sir," put in the bondautocrat, who had been 
occupied during this discussion on some business calcula- 
tion ; " repeat that phrase. It falls on my ear as does 
the soft restrained *no' of the yielding damsel upon the 
ear of her lover. Make it pay! Ah, there is music in 
that. I hear in it, sir, the jingle of gold, and gold means 
loyalty, power, honor, office, royalty. Loyalty, why, bless 
fne, I took contracts from the government to furnish sup- 
plies. I had out my agents, I don't know how many, to 
iiuy provisions, horses, and I'd like to have said men, but 
1 guess the word horse will cover that species too ; in- 
deed, we bought some of them almost as cheap. Loyalty ! 
bless the word, it made my pile just ten times what it 
was, with a fair prospect for doubling every five years: 
that beats compound interest two to one. Power! wh}^ 
my friends, am I not just making a contract with you to 
make a new breed of mules, to create a race of slaves 
tit for thfs enlightened and progressive age? Power, 
gentlemen ! are we not about to harmonize discords, rec- 
oncile antipathies, and reverse the order of nature ; aye, 
more, annul the decrees of Heaven itself ? Who will have 
the hardihood not to bow down and worship our god ? 
Whoever he may be, let him remember the fate of the ob- 
stinate Hebrew who was cast into the lions' den." 

" My good friend," interrupted the preacher, agitated 
and trembling, " don't repeat that sentence. There is no 
nusic in it to my ears." 

"Why, what's the matter, friend priest?" asked the 
bondautocrat. " What means all this consternation ? 
Didn't you tell me that you had no faith in that old book 
of Jewish fables ?" 



THE FIRST WITNESS. 31 

"I have none, sir," answered tlie priest; "but even 
devils believe and tremble. Did not even the fierce lions 
tremble and crouch before the gaze of the friendless cap- 
tive, who refused to bow down aiid worship the heathen's 
god ? It was the same Daniel who w^as sent for to inter- 
pret the vision of judgment which startled the impious 
Belshazzar from his licentious revelries. A mysterious 
hand passed over the wall, leaving behind it a blaze of 
fire. The godless king turned pale and shook like a man 
with ague; the Chaldean soothsayers and interpreters 
trembled before the fearful vision : not so the prophet 
who had refused to worship the god of men and kings. 
He boldly dipped into the quivering flame the pencil of 
prophecy, and as he traced it along the wall letters of fire 
followed it, blazing forth the doom of the Chaldean em- 
pire, Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upfiarsin. Now, when I re- 
member that the offense of the wicked king was 'the 
Lord thy God, in whose hands thy breath is and whose 
are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified,' I thought I saw 
the same dreadful hand on that wall." 

The bondautocrat with a smile of contempt turned away 
from the preacher, and addressing himself to the politician, 
said: " Friend, I see we will have to manage this busi- 
ness our^^elves. It is a bold undertaking, and will require 
stout hearts to carry it through. This chicken-livered 
priest will be of no service to us. Well," he added, "the 
fewer agents we have the better it will pay them." 

" The better it will pay,^^ repeated the priest, recover- 
ing from his fright, — " the better it will pay. Pay, pay I 
that's what I work for, that's what I live for, that's what 
I preach for. Pay, pay: what will you have me to do?" 

"Go to the devil," said the bondautocrat, with a sneer. 

" Go to the devil," repeated the priest: " go to the devil. 
Willitpay ? Will it pay ? Well, wait a little," he added, 
"till 1 catch my breath, and get over this scare, and I 
think I will be ready to sttirt." 

" I am sure," said the politician, " you will have to keep 
this man in your service, for he is prepared to go a little 
further in the business than I am." 

" Well, Mr. Priest," said the bondautocrat, " let us hear 
something more of this mule-breeding business." 



32 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

" As a proof of my capacity to serve you in this matter," 
said the priest, " I was just giving you an illustration of 
my success in horse training. When our friend here, the 
politician, shall have all the colts gathered into the herd- 
pens, I will proceed to administer the powder I spoke of, 
viz., miscegenation. As the thing is repulsive to the 
natural taste, it will be necessary to disguise it a little 
with an admixture of something more palatable. You've 
seen likely those little slices of bread and butter called 
Sunday-school books. The flour these things are made 
of is brought from the mill of truth: but falsehood is so 
largely mixed in the dough as to change both the flavor 
and effect of this bread upon the system. Once get the 
taste perverted, and you have a morbid appetite which 
you can modify gradually to suit any kind of food you 
may wish to give. If you will examine these pieces, you 
will find them not true and natural, but entirely artificial; 
the bread itself made out of cheat, and the butter nothing 
more than the milky whey of phariseeism. To drop the 
figure, you will find in reading these books that they con- 
tain no true picture of human life ; but the characters who 
figure in them are all either little angels or little devils. 
It don't take children long to find out this imposition, and 
then one of two results must follow: either they will be- 
lieve nothing and become infidel, or else with that selfish- 
ness so common to human nature, they will assume the 
good character and become Pharisees, which is only 
another form of infidelity. For, once wrap around a human 
soul the phylactery of pharisaism, and you have made it 
impervious to truth. You can hardly persuade one to take 
medicine who is sure in his own mind that he is not sick. 
Tne next medicine we administer, and it is an admirable 
preparation, is the yellow-back novel. Equally far from 
nature and truth as the other, this is intended to act upon 
other organs and develop other passions, to stir up licen- 
tious lusts, and to fill the mind with lascivious images. 
These act like a charm. After reading a faw of these 
they are unable to restrain their animal passions at all, 
but are ready for anything which will indulge them, how- 
ever brutal it may be. But the very best thing to facili- 
tate this business will be to introduce into these herd- 



THE FIRST WITNESS. 33 

pens (common schools), as guides and leaders for the 
colts, a new species of mares, which are, I believe, natives 
of this country. The unnatural shape of these big ugly 
mares serves to deceive both the horse colts and the ass 
colts, so that both can be easily persuaded to follow them. 
By nature theyai'e abortions, brought into this breathing 
world before their time, scarce half made up. They are 
raised in the mountains of pharisaism, and fed upon 
laurel, nightshade, hellebore, and other noxious weeds of 
infidelity. They don't often breed; but whether it is 
because their hideousness makes them disgusting to the 
other sex, or because being so unnatural they are devoid 
of those affections and passions which lead other animals 
to reproduce their kind, has not been determined. But 
the devil or some other enemy of this world has furnished 
them with big, filthy-looking udders, in which settles the 
distilled essence of tht>*poisonous herbs they feed upon. 
These udders are supplied with as many teats as the dif- 
ferent kind of poisonous herbs they eat. Some of these 
creatures have only one teat, and it gives out a milk which 
is according to the; herb it feeds on, eitlier mesmerism, 
spiritualism, freeloveism, mormonism, equality, or what 
not. But others have all these teats, and in addition one 
other big black one protruding from the bottom of the 
udder, and reaching nearly to the ground. There seems 
to be a duct or channel of communication leading from all 
the other teats into this one, and pouring into it all their 
different kinds of poison. Here they are mixed and dis- 
tilled into the quintessence of poison. This teat is mis- 
cegenation, and when pressed or sucked it gives out a 
yellow, sickly, fetid matter called mongrelism. I've no 
doubt both you gentlemen know from the description the 
animals I allude to." 

"I would take them to be," said the politician, with a 
knowing smile, " those animals commonly called the 
strong-minded. If," continued the politician, "you can 
once get the colts to follow these creatures and suck them, 
I am sure we would have no further trouble. The ass 
colts being naturally low and near the ground will suck 
them without any difficulty; but the horse, which nature 
has lifted higher above the ground, will not be brought to 

B* 



84 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

it so easily. It will be, in the first place, a little incon- 
venient ; and then there is a somethin<^ in the nature of 
all animals except snakes, a pride which rebels against 
the idea of stooping, groveling, crawling." 

The boEidautocrat here remarked, in an under-tone, 
"I think I know some exceptions to this rule besides 
snakes." 

"Your remark, Mr. Politician," put in tlie preacher, 
"brings out a fact, which shows how perfectly those 
animals are suited to our purpose. You see they have 
other teats higher up, and coming down at intervals: 
mesmerism, spiritualism, freeloveism, etc. These other 
teats they can suck without getting on their knees, and 
besides, they are not quite so disgusting; so you see a 
skillful feeder will work them down so gradually that 
they will get on their knees before they are aware of it." 

" But, gentlemen," said the bondautocrat, " what will 
become of my colts ? tell me. Since this thought has 
come into my mind I don't much like the business." 

"Mr. Bondautocrat" (both speaking at once), "you 
need give yourself no uneasiness on that score. Why, 
my dear sir," continued the politician, "you can have a 
nice little herd-pen of your own, where your colts can be 
trained to your own mind. Indeed, neither Mr. Priest 
nor myself expect to train our colts after tlie fashion we 
have been describing, any further than will be necessary 
to fit them to take our place when we are gone. We will 
use the 'poor white trash' for this purpose, sir; 'the 
poor white trash,' the scrub breed which we bought up 
to do the drudgery of the war, the vulgar masses, sir, on 
whose shoulders we are quietly shifting the expenses of 
that same war, together with the -heavily accumulating 
costs of government. It is astonishing, sir, how well all 
these things are working together to further our plans. 
The war was the most fortunate event of all. It created 
the necessity for an immense amount of money. That 
mouev you gentlemen loaned to the government at a 
pretty high rate of interest; indeed, the debt was more 
than doui)led in this way. The government gave its 
promise to pay for many a dollar which wasn't worth a 
half-dollar ; I am sure that more than half of the debt 



THE FIRST WIliXESS. 35 

was made by these three things, — frauds, speculations, 
and the exorbitant premiums the government paid for the 
money it Ijorrowerl." 

To this the bondautocrat ans^vered rather angrily, "I 
do not see the drift of your argument, sir. Do you mean 
to question my integrity, or the validity of my claims 
against the government?" 

"Not by any means, my dear sir," said the politician ; 
"I meant simply to state a fact; and that fact, so far 
from being derogatory to you, is one of the highest com- 
pliments to your financial ability. You managed to loan 
your money to the government for more than double 
what it was worth, exacting, at the same time, a condi- 
tion, that is, exemption from taxation, which will double 
it again after a while. My dear sir, I thought we politi- 
cians were sharp fellows, but this beats us three to one. 
By the way, I've thought often that your profession did 
not deal as liberally by ours as you ought to. It was by 
and through us that you have obtained those special 
privileges which make you the ruling power of this 
country ; and yet when we ask for some liberal remuner- 
ation, such as will enable us to live handsomely when 
the shifting whims of the rabble shall retire us from office, 
you refuse it, and we are compelled to sell ourselves to 
some new master, as we did not long ago to the w^hisky 
monopolists, in order to make the rise, I cannot but 
thitik, sir, that in this matter you stand in your own 
light. It increases the number of your profession and 
.puts more burdens on the backs of the people." 

" You politicians," retorted the bondautocrat, sharply, 
" are like leeches, you are never satisfied ; your cry is all 
the time, more. You are a reckless set of spendthrifts ; 
your extravagant demands would break us up if we did 
not manage by skillful stratagems to shift the burden on 
somebody. Whom will we put the burden on, if not the 
people? Don't be squeamish about the matter. The 
people have many backs, good, strong, square backs too. 
What else are they fit for but to bear burdens? As a 
proof, look how patiently they submit. Like the camels, 
they even get down on their knees to receive them. Ay, 
worse ; for when the camel is overloaded he will refuse 



36 Till-: GREAT TRIAL. 

to get up ; but these creatures, when you overload them, 
will ask you to change their natures and make out of 
them a mongrel race of mules, that they may be better 
fitted for their servitude. Don't talk to me, sir, about the 
people. This stuff may do to tickle their ears, while you 
impose some new burden on them ; but to one who sees 
their menial subserviency, such twaddle is disgusting. 
The fact is I can't see how you are going to make mules 
by crossing such creatures with asses, for they are no 
better than asses themselves. Why, think of this fact 
for one moment. In the brief space of six years, at one 
dash I might say, burdens have been placed on their 
backs, such burdens as it took the governments of 
Europe, which you call despotic, a hundred years to put 
upon the backs of their serfs. Yes, in the brief space of 
six years the burden of debt has been piled up to nearly 
three billions, the annual expenses quadrupled, tens o^ 
thousands of idle, vagabond negroes fed and clothed at 
their cost, the original plan of their government by means 
of States abolished, and military satrapies set up in their 
stead ; their ancient Constitution utterly ignored in their 
national assembly, the chief executive office and the 
supreme judiciary paralyzed by legislative restrictions, 
and a system of social law adopted w^hich proposes the 
conversion of their own children into a mongrel race of 
mules, that they may be the better able to carry the vast 
additional burdens which inevitably belong to their 
future. I venture the assertion, without fear of success- 
ful contradiction by any facts which have accrued in the 
past, or which may accrue in the future, that no people in 
Europe would permit so many and so great changes in 
their political and social systems without a convulsion 
which would swallow up the thrones of their royal mas- 
ters. I ought perhaps to except the serfs of Russia, who 
never had any idea of what freedom is ; indeed, I was not 
a little amused to see them receive not long since with 
acclamations of joy the edict of their royal master, that 
henceforth lie would be the one, sole, absolute master of 
his people, and that he would hold in his own hands, and 
at his disposal, the life and property of every man, woman, 
and child in his vast empire. 'Tis true he did this in the 



THE FIRST W/TA'ESS. S^J 

name of freedom, but the object of the czar was not that 
the serfs might be free, but that their masters might be 
slaves; not that any man in Russia might be free, but 
that every man in Russia might be a slave ; something 
after your mode of freeing the negroes in the South, Mr, 
Politician," said the bondautocrat, with a smile. "Poor 
old decrepit Austria! I would except her too, if she was 
not beneath all notice. Indeed, her people have been 
slaves so long, even tradition and fables give no account 
of when they were free. Gentlemen," continued the 
bondautocrat, " when I consider all these facts, notorious, 
glaring facts, this mule-breeding business seems to me to 
be a work of supererogation, a useless expense. Nor 
am I in the habit, like you, Mr. Politician, of spending 
money when there is no necessity for it. That system 
of doing business don't pay. So," continued the bondau- 
tocrat, turning to the priest with a smile of mingled pity 
and contempt, "we will save you the trouble and ex- 
pense of your proposed visit to his Satanic majesty. I 
think it won't pay. Pray, sir, what do you think about 
it? Speak out." 

" Gentlemen," answered the priest, after some little 
reflection, "it seems to me that you have only looked at 
the surface of things. I am better acquainted with 
the people than either of 3'ou. I have been more inti- 
mately associated with them ; I've had more to do 
with them. This ignorance and frivolity you see 
floating on the surface are not ever3Mhing. Ko, there 
is a deep current, a soul, a wave of fire, under the drift 
you've been looking at. Let some Hampden, some Lu- 
ther, some Yoltaire, some Patrick Henry, with the hand 
of inspiration, pull this drift apart and let into the smoul- 
dering fire, beneath, the air of truth, and you would see 
a conflagration such as the world has never witnessed. 
Then, sir, the priest would have plenty of company to 
the devil. We would start in a hurry, sirs, pay or no 
pay. Nor would we be long in going, for the human 
soul, when once waked up, is a consuming fire to those 
who have trifled with it and betrayed its confidence. 
The condition of things you see around you is not natural, 
but all artificial. It has been brought about gradually 

4 



t1 

38 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

and by a long system of training. I know this because 
I've had a heap to do with the training; and besides, I 
can well remember when things were not as they now are. 
I can remember when it was necessary for a preacher to 
be a Christian, for the representative of the people to 
be a patriot, and when the rich man, in order to be popular 
and influential, had to be honest, kind, and benevolent. 
But now the .priest is most esteemed who evades the truth 
of Christianity entirely, who makes the strait and narrow 
path so broad and crooked that the world can go to 
heaven without going out of its own highway. The 
politician is most popular who is most accomplished in 
trickery, most reckless in disregarding the constitution of 
his country, and most successful in striking sharp bar- 
gains with the lobby agents of moneyed monopolies. 
And the respect which is paid to the rich man is deter- 
mined not by his integrity and benevolence, but by the 
number of his thousands or millions, whether they have 
been accumulated by honest industry and good sense, or 
by fraud (buying Congress, for instance, to pass some law 
to give him the monopoly of his business), or directly 
filching from the poor their hard-earned trash. Do not 
delude yourselves with the idea that all these changes 
have been brought about without a cause. Nor must 
you forget the fact that there are causes suflicient, if rightly 
used, to change the whole current of events i-yea, amply 
sufficient to undo all that we propose to do, and to damn 
us besides. It is our profession, gentlemen, which has 
prepared the people for the present condition of things. 
The politician complains of not being paid for his ser- 
vices in this matter,and arrogates to himself the credit of 
having done it all. But the truth is we have done more 
than the politician and get worse pay. We have put the 
, people to sleep, we have administered to them the fatal 
opiates of infidelity. Indeed, I never preach to them 
without being reminded of that graphic description of' 
one of the prophets, 'They have eyes, but they see not; 
ears, but they hear not.' For instance, this mule-breeding 
business of ours is a deliberate purpose and plan to degrade 
their offspring and fit them for perpetual servitude. The 
thing is so palpable that if they were not blind they would 



' THE IIRST WITNESS. 39 

see it, if they were not deaf they would hear it. Suppose 
their eyes were opened for a moment, their ears un- 
stopped, and tliey should see and hear these things as 
tliey are. Gentlemen, it would be better for us if we had 
a millstone around our necks, and were cast into the 
middle of the sea." 

"Mr. Preacher," said the politician, "I think you are 
arrogating to yourself claims which do not belong to you. 
It was the dogma of equality and universal suffrage 
taught by us which has brought about the present con- 
dition of things." 

"My dear sir," answered the priest, "the dogma of 
equality you claim was held and taught by the fathers 
of the country, the men who created and organized our 
government. Now, if what you say is true, why did not 
the present condition of things exist then ? Why would 
not the same cause produce the same effect then as now ? 
Why did not the founders of the government provide, in 
its organization, for everybody to vote ? Why did they 
not liberate their slaves, and let them vote ? Gentlemen," 
continued the priest, " you seem to be under a misappre- 
hension in regard to the whole matter. I think it will be 
belter, before we go any further, to set the thing right. 
To my mind there are difficulties in our way, which you 
don't seem to see at all. The truth is this, the whole 
doctrine of equality is a humbug. The men who framed 
this government didn't believe a word of it. This is 
clear, first, from a history of their actions ; they never 
attempted to carry it into the practical operations of their 
government, either State or national. Secondly, from 
the very nature of the case it was impossible ; the causes 
which lead to the principal emigration to this country 
grew out of that great revolution in the affairs of p]urope 
commonly called the Reformation. Almost every state 
of Europe become a battle-field in the war between the 
Catholic Church and the. Reformers. This was the 
greatest awakening of the human mind the world had 
ever seen. The art of printing had been discovered. 
The Bible had been translated into the vulgar tongues of 
the different nations of Europe. When the people com- 
pared its truth, its purity, and its justice with the errors, 



40 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

the licentiousness, and the tyranny of the church, they 
abandoned the church by thousands. So wonderful was 
the revolution it brought about that in an incredibly short 
space of time the Reformers had built up great parties in 
all the kingdoms of Europe. Indeed, every state was 
divided. In one state the church party held the power, 
and in another the Protestant party. The party which 
held the powder in any one state would persecute the 
other party : they would impose civil and political disa- 
bilities ; indeed, this was the mildest form of persecution. 
The block, the rack, the wheel, the dungeon, and in short 
every species of torture, was resorted to, to destroy 
heresy on the one hand, and to break down popery on 
the other. Catholic France, for instance, persecuted the 
Protestants; Protestant England, on the other hand, 
persecuted the Catholics. Men living in a country where 
their religion was not the prevailing religion, found it 
necessary to do one of three things : to recant publicly 
and abandon their religion, to hide their faith, or else to 
endure the pains and penalties of the laws enacted against 
them. Men who had faith in their religion, and the 
moral heroism to maintain their faith at every cost, deter- 
mined to risk the Indian scalping-knife and the wild beasts 
of the American forests raiher than to yield the truth. 

" Such were the men, men conscientiously and hecoically 
Christians, who settled this country and founded our 
government. These men, with the light of the Bible to 
guide them, could no more believe that all men are equal 
than you and I, with the light of the sun to guide us, 
could believe that all men are of the same color. The 
Bible from beginning to end, both the Old and New Testa- 
ments, recognizes at all times, at all places, under all cir- 
cumstances, the inequality of man. It speaks of princes 
and people, the noble and ignoble, the wise and the 
simple, the great and the small, the rich and the poor. 
All the different persons we find there have different 
talents. Christ himself tells us that God has given to 
one man five talents, to another three, and to another one ; 
We find the one has a talent to preach, one to prophesy, 
one to exhort, one to rule, and so on. More than this, 
men who made the Bible the rule of their faith, and the 



THE FIRST WITNESS. 41 

guide of their life, had always their wits about them ; 
they reasoned soundly, rationally, and wisely. Now, 
reasoning from the analogies of nature, the law of ine- 
quality is the order of the universe. Beginning with the 
great First Cause, God, the creator and author of all 
things, we have the archangels, the angels, and man — 
man in highest intellectual endowments, and man coming 
down step by step, until he gets so low that you can 
scarcely tell him from the animal. So you can trace the 
animal down, from the horse and dog — and these are so 
intelligent that man can almost talk with them — to the 
sponge, which so nearly resembles the vegetable that it is 
hardly distinguishable from it. So you can follow the 
gradations of life in the vegetable world, from the rose, 
whose beauty and fragrance speak the language of love 
so eloquently, to the toadstool and fungous growth on the 
body of trees, which have so little life that you can hardly 
tell them from dead matter. No, gentlemen, equality was 
born at other times, and under other circumstances. 

"While Luther and hiscolaborers in the great work of 
reform used the simple sword of truth, the word of God, 
they were irresistible. They went conquering and to 
conquer. They overran Germany, England, France, 
Switzerland, and indeed nearly all Europe., But when 
they forgot that the great end and aim of Christianity, 
its alpha and omega, its beginning and its end, its pro- 
phecies and its preaching, its laws and its ordinances, its 
doctrines and its ceremonies, is, as was beautifully set 
forth by its divine liead, 'to love the Lord thy God with 
all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself,' the Reforma- 
tion stopped. Yes, as soon as they forgot this truth and 
sat down to quarrel with each other about their foolish 
theologies, their silly doctrines and stupid creeds, the 
Reformation not only stopped but commenced going 
backwards. When the Reformers commenced building 
ecclesiastical courts, and making ecclesiastical laws, not 
for the purpose of promoting the glory of God and the 
good of man, but for the purpose of getting into their own 
hands power and authority, the Reformation began to go 
backwards. In the mean time the Catholic Church had 
reformed many of its abuses ; in her hour of danger she 

4* 



42 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

had called to her aid a uew class of men. She got into 
other and better hands. Her new rulers commissioned 
Loyola and men like him to undertake her defense. They 
went forth, with Jesuit and other new orders, like an 
army of martyrs, fired with a holy zeal to defend the 
church, and die, if need be, in her defense. This army 
attacked the Protestants, no longer governed by the spirit 
which begot the Reformation, but divided and wrangling 
with each other about their foolish creeds. Thousands 
of good men — honest, conscientious, and benevolent men 
— had espoused the cause of the Reformation because they 
believed it to be the cause of truth. But when they saw 
the new churches falling into the same errors and com- 
mitting the same follies as the old church had done, when 
they saw the Reformers teaching for doctrines the com- 
mandments of men, and laboring to build up for them- 
selves power and authority by means of ecclesiastictil 
courts, they determined to go back to the mother church. 
Their purpose was pushed on not a little by the fact that 
the old church, purified in the tires of tribulation, not only 
exhibited a holier zeal, but was performing more of the 
practical duties of Christianity. In going back, however, 
they had to pass over the debatable ground of skepticism. 
Here, in this land of doubt and infidelity, was born the 
dogma of equality. 

" Whether it was because France contained a larger 
proportion of men of this class than other countries, or 
whether it w^as because her people had been more cursed 
by the church, and oppressed with a more intolerable 
despotism than any other people of Europe, it will not be 
necessary for us to inquire; it will be sufficient for our 
purpose to know that France adopted this new philosophy, 
and made it at once her politics and her religion. The 
liistory of her long struggle to build up a system of re- 
ligion and government upon this infidel idea, together 
with its utter and terrible failure, are too well known to 
be described here. Every one who has read history at 
all remembers vividly the dark deeds of that reign of 
terror; how that the streets of her cities ran red with 
blood ; how that Nemesis, the goddess of revenge, took 
possession of the river Seine, and refused to be propitiated 



THE FIRST WirXESS. 43 

until hundreds of innocent little children were offered as 
sacrifices to its dark waters; how that a strumpet was 
placed upon the throne, and the people commanded to 
worship her as the goddess o^ reason : while the Chris- 
tian world looked with horror upon this terrible tragedy, 
it could but look with contempt upon the pitiable and 
disgusting farce which wound it up. How truly pitiable 
it w^as to see a people confessedly great, a people phys- 
ically, morally, and intellectually equal to any nation 
on earth, w^eakened, worn out, and exhausted by this 
ague-fit of infidelity! to see them conscious of their own 
wretchedness, begging their old taskmasters, the nobility, 
and the priesthood, to come back and save them from the 
madness of their own crimes and follies ! Surely, gentle- 
men, this sight was not calculated to recommend a sys- 
tem of philosophy to such men as the VVashingtons, 
Henrys, Adamses, Franklins, and Hamiltons of America. 
The truth is, France had at the beginning of that revo- 
lution a great soldier and statesman, trained under 
"Washington and thoroughly imbued with the spirit of 
American liberty, the Marquis de Lafayette. But for 
trying to stay the fanatical run-mad proceedings of her 
National Assembly, and for daring to recommend a 
policy rational, wise, and consistent, Lafayette had to 
fly from his country." 

" Mr. Priest," interrupted the bondautocrat, "I don't 
see the use of all this history. What has it to do with the 
case in hand ?" 

"The fact I've been trying to show you is this: that 
the condition of affairs now existing in this country is 
wholly unnatural ; that it has been brought about by a 
certain definite cause, and that cause is infidelity. I re- 
peat it, such monstrous falsehood could never have been 
imposed upon the human mind unless it had first been 
lulled to sleep with the opiates of infidelity. Why, sir, 
any man who is not asleep can tell just by looking 
around him that there are plenty of men not equal to 
him, and plenty of others to whom he is not equal either 
physically, intellectualh^ morally, or socially. He would 
know, too, that the simple fact of voting don't make him 
equal to men who are his superiors, nor make those men 



44 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

equal to him who are his inferiors. He would know that 
by a little practice his horses and dog's could be taught to 
vote, and if voting produces equality his horses and dogs 
would be equal to him and equal to other men. The 
common people w^ould know that they haven't got jfs 
much learning as I have, nor as much talent as my 
friend the politician, nor the luxurious refinements and 
elegancies of life which your wealth enables you to have. 
In what, then, does this equality consist? In voting — a 
mere name. They come to the polls, and vote, and then 
go back to their drudgery and toil, which other people 
get the benefit of, just like other slaves. It does seem to 
me that these people, although both blind and deaf, ought 
to feel that suffrage is only a bauble for them to play with, 
while other people reap the fruits of their labor." 

"What is the use," interrupted the bondautocrat, with 
impatience, " of this labored effort to prove what nobody 
doubts ? I reached the conclusion by a shorter cut long 
ago, that these people wont make mules by crossing them 
with asses, for they are asses themselves." 

''Suppose," retorted the priest, a little nettled, "that 
some Patrick Henry, gifted with inspiration, should 
preach to these people and wake them up. Suppose they 
should demand of my friend the politician the Union he 
promised them the war would save and not destroy, as it 
has done. Suppose they should demand of me the free- 
dom which I promised from the pulpit the war would 
bring, when in fact it has brought on them the despotism 
of an oppressive and intolerable taxation. Suppose they 
should demand of you the equality which you promised 
the war would bring, when in fact it has built up a 
moneyed aristocracy, tenfold greater than any which 
existed in the country before. Suppose this requisition 
should come to us, not as a petition, but as the demand 
of a right, — a right which they as American citizens 
inherited from their fathers, a right which no power on 
earth has authority to take from them, — what, sir, would 
become of your conclusions ? what, sir, would become of 
us ?" 

" Mr. Priest," said the politician, "this is a view of the 
matter which had never occurred to me ; and it strikes 



THE FIRST WITNESS. 45 

me very forcibly as being true. If it is true, this is a 
more perilous undertaking than I supposed, and the risk 
is more than I feel willing to undertake." 

"What, Mr. Politician!" said the bondautocrat, "you 
getting scared too?" 

• *' I am willing," said the politician, "to do anything 
which will pay, except to go to the devil. If these 
people are as terrible as the priest would have us believe, 
I am afraid that is where we will go to before we get 
thrcfugh." 

" Gentlemen," answered the bondautocrat, " I don't 
know that there is such a thing as going to the devil, or 
such a place to go to ; but I do know there is such a place 
as Wall Street; and such things as gold, greenbacks, and 
bonds; I know, too, that all these things are for hire at 
paying rates, and ready always for a speculation wliich 
promises to pay." 

" This thing will pay beyond a doubt," answered the 
priest, " if we can only carry it through. It will make 
secure, Mr. Bondautocrat, what has ah-eady been gained. 
Besides this, it will lead into your coffers a stream of 
replenishment constant and unfailing. Once succeed in 
crossing the ' poor white trash ' with the negro, and you 
will have a mongrel race of slaves, without spirit or 
courage ; a race whose docility and tameness will enable 
you to keep them in servitude forever. Now, what better 
basis could you have to build an aristocracy ou than a 
class of laborers, who will be made fit by natural laws 
for servitude ? You have no idea, sir, how the infusion 
of a little negro blood will tame that wild, fierce torrent 
which rushes through the veins of the Caucasian. 
Besides this, it will thicken up the skin, and make him 
less sensitive to the yoke of slavery: they will not gall 
so quick. But, gentlemen," continued the priest, " we 
must not lose sight of the fact that this business is risky, 
and that it will require all the wisdom and power we 
possess to carry it through. In the first place, we must 
keep the people constantly asleep with the opiates of in- 
fidelity. As this is more especially my part of the busi- 
ness, I will see to it that it is not neglected. The most 
sure way to do this is to keep them amused by some 



46 . THE GREAT TRIAL. 

Dew toy. Just now we have hang'mg, like a plaything 
around their necks, woman's rights. This bauble will do 
for some time yet. By t4ie time it gets old and wears 
out, as temperance, prohibitory laws, mesmerism, spirit- 
ualism, etc., have done, we will have something new. In 
the mean time, Mr. Politician, do you do all in your power- 
to centralize the government, enlarge its powers, increase 
the military departments, and keep everything in the 
hands of our party." 

"Everything is w^orking to our hand," answered the 
politician. "If our reconstruction policy is carried 
through, and it will be beyond a doubt, my part of the 
business will be done." 

"Why did you not keep up the military government 
in the South V asked the bondautocrat. " That, it seems 
to me, would have been the very policy to enlarge the 
army." 

" My dear sir," answered the politician, " our system 
will answer the purpose much better than a direct mili- 
tary government. It will take twice as large an army 
to keep those negro governments straight as it would 
require to carry on a single military government. 
Under military rule the better class of citizens in those 
States would control the government. For I care not 
whom we might send there as military governors, they 
would recognize at once the vast superiority of the dis- 
franchised party over the party to whom we have in- 
trusted the governments as reconstructed. The black 
and white negroes," said the politician, smiling, " who 
have the management of things down there, are wholly 
incompetent to carry on any government." 

"The negroes and ' poor white trash,'' I guess," said 
the bondautocrat. 

"If you had left the word poor out you would have 
hit it exactly," said the politician, — " the negro and white 
trash. To give the devil his dues," continued the poli- 
tician, " no class of their people entered upon the war 
with more zeal, and maintained their cause with greater 
fidelity, than the laboring people of the South. Indeed, 
sir had their wealthy citizens exhibited the same spirit 
o^ ielf-sacrificing devotion, we never could have whipped 



THE Filler WITS ESS. 47 

them. The rich men of the South went into tlie war, 
those of the cotton States more especially, for the pur- 
pose of creating a new government, which they supposed 
would add greatly to their wealth and importance. But 
the masses of the people went into it because it was an 
invasion of their homes. They looked upon it as a tyran- 
nical iisurpation of power by the federal government, for 
the purpose of trampling underfoot their long-cherished 
doctrine of State rights. Indeed, they looked upon the 
whole thing as a violation of the constitutional compact 
between the States, a total subversion of our system of 
government, and an outrage upon the genius of Amer- 
ican liberty. The democratic party of the North not only 
entertained the same political notions, but they actually 
urged the South into the w^ar. When, however, the 
South got into the difficulty, they not only deserted her, 
but actually helped to destroy her, — an instance of 
treachery, meanness, and cowardice such as the world 
never saw before. The rebels I hate most heartily ; but 
the party who were their friends until they got into 
trouble, and then turned round and helped destroy them, 
and the political principles which they held in common 
with them, I despise. I think, sir, we deserve a good 
deal of credit for the way in which we managed that 
thing. In the first place, we bought up the old party 
leaders with office and gold, until we got the rank and 
file into line, and then we kicked them out. The South 
to-day is divided into two parties. The one party con- 
sists of the brave and iionorable men who, whether rich 
or poor, were ready to sacrifice their lives and property 
in defense of what they believed to be the right; my 
enemies as they are, I cannot but admire the genius, the 
constancy, and the heroism they exhibited in their des- 
perate defense of a bad cause. The other party is made 
up of the odds and ends, the rag-tag and bob-tails, the 
>egroes and white trash indeed; poor white men who 
were cowards, and afraid to go into the army, or deserted 
it after they w^ere in ; rich white men who thought the 
North was the strong side, and that they had better stay on 
that side to save their property; men who never had any 
country but their own farms; never worshiped any God 



48 7/^^ GREAT Th'IAL. 

but mammon, and never told the truth when it was more 
profitable to tell a lie : lastly, mean white men, who 
fought atjainst us until they saw that we were the strong 
party, and then suddenly changing sides, they sought to 
make amends for their crimes and conciliate us by violent 
and excessive persecution of their own people. To this 
jumble of ignorance, cowardice, and meanness we have 
intrusted the government of these States. The devil 
himself could not have devised a better excuse for making 
trouble there and creating a necessity for a large standing 
army. Another advantage, sir, which our plan has over 
that of military governments is this: it will not be so 
objectionable to the people. From the very infancy of 
our government the people have been taught to look with 
suspicion upon standing armies. Nothing was so abhor- 
rent to the minds of the fathers of our country. They 
regarded a standing army as the sum of all evils. So very 
unpopular with the people has this thing always been, 
that with all the party changes which this country has 
witnessed since its organization, do party has ever been 
rash enough to advocate a standing arniy. At this time 
a large number of our voters are emigrants from the 
states of Europe, and large military establishments are 
still more unpopular with them than with native citizens ; 
they had standing armies at home, and they know what 
they mean." 

" Did I not understand you to say," asked the bond- 
autocrat, " that your plan will require larger armies than 
the other ?" 

" Yes, sir, twice as large ; but the difference will be 
this. In the first plan the army is used directly to govern, 
in the other it is used indirectly. In other words, under 
military rule the army would govern the people ; under 
our reconstruction policy the army will govern the gov- 
ernments of the people. The people, sir, believe in self- 
government; nor would they permit an army to be kept 
in the South to rule the people there. But when we tell 
them that we are keeping an army there to support and 
uphold the cause of freedom and universal suffrage, it 
makes it all right. Had Napoleon Buonaparte told the 
French people that he wanted large armies to make him- 



THE FIRST wiTxrss. 49 

self master of his people, and their kinp:, they would have 
chopped his head off; but wlien he told them he wanted 
the army to' protect the liberty and glory of France, they 
applauded him. After he g-ot the power in his hands the 
people found out what he was doing ; but then it was too 
late. We must keep the people in ignorance until we get 
our power established. Still another advantage our plan 
has: if we may use military power to govern a Southern 
State when it is refractory, why may we not use it upon 
a Northern State too ? Some of the Northern States may 
object to the rule after awhile, but their m*uths will be 
estopped from complaining if w^e use the military; for 
surely if they sanction its use against other States, they 
will have do just grounds of complaint' if it should be 
used against them. Don't you see the point of my argu- 
ment, Mr. Bondautocrat?" 

"Ah, my dear sir," replied the bondautocrat. "these 
are the points I like ; and then I admire your way of 
going right straight to them. Our friend the priest 
always has to give us first a great long preamble of his- 
tory and philosophy, and every few steps he sees the 
hand write on the wall at Pharaoh's feast, and stops to 
put up a finger-board with danger writ on it. Indeed, I 
don't believe he has quite gotten over the first scare I gave 
him when I incidentally alluded tro that old Jew Bel- 
shazzar — was it not? — that the lions eat up." 

" My dear sir," said the priest, a little nettled at the 
ignorance of his master, " Ifear my history will fare worse 
in your bands than Daniel did in the paws of the lion." 

"I confess I never studied your history and "philos- 
ophy," said the bondautocrat; " nor do I regret it, for I 
have made other studies pay me better than these fool- 
eries have paid you. Men are my books, and I have 
studied them to some purpose. I've made it pay, sir: 
millions. Don't you think I've made better use of my 
books than you have of yours?" 

"Yes," answered the priest, a good deal nettled, 
"you've used the politician to betray his country and 
sell its liberties, and the priest to betray his God, and 
sell his soul to the devil, in order to filch from the peoj)le 
their hard-earned trash, that your coflTers might be filled." 
c 5^ 



50 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

" Ha I ha !" laughed the bondautocrat. " I have been 
a more prudent man than you, and invested my funds to 
better advantage, that's all. When my salavy was one 
thousand dollars, I saved five hundred ; and when it got 
to be five thousand, I saved twenty-five hundred, — half, 
yes, always half. As soon as I got able I started a 
factory. It was a good business, paying me about five 
thousand a year. Hands were cheap, and provisions 
low ; a*t least I bought for them the cheap kind. This 
was about ten per cent, on the capital invested. In the 
mean time I met with a lobby member of your body, Mr. 
Politician, and he proposed for ten thousand to get a bill 
put through to protect my business. I at first objected, 
for it looked like risking too much upon an uncertainty. 
When he assured me, however, that it would make my 
business pay fifty per cent., and that there was no risk 
in tlie matter at all, I closed the bargain at once. After 
he got my money he told me that I had better have 
another ten thousand ready, for it might require that 
much more. He said he could not tell the exact amount 
it would take, but he knew there was a sum which would 
do the business beyond a peradventure. It did take the 
other ten thousand. This was several years ago, when 
the business was comparatively new and things didn't 
w^ork so smoothly as they do now. They were afraid of 
the people then, and had to work very cautiously. Indeed, 
there were plenty of men in your body then, Mr. Politi- 
cian, called patriots, who were on the lookout for these 
things. For if they could find them out and report them 
to the people, it would make them extremely popular. I 
suppose Mr. Priest would tell us that the people were not 
asleep then, as they are now. Really, some change does 
seem to have come over the spirit of their dream. Not 
long ago, Mr. Politician, I heard a member of your body, 
while giving an account of his stewardship to his con- 
stituents, allude boastingly to one of these transactions by 
which he himself had made a good round sum ; and his 
people applauded him and sent him back for another 
term. By the way, Mr. Politician, what has become of 
those men in your profession whom they used to call 
patriots? The old set I know are all dead and gone; but 



THE FIRST WITNESS. 51 

T suppose they were not all baclielors. Some of them 
must have left children behind, and what has become of 
them? These times we never see them nor hear them 
spoken of at all." 

"You seem, sir," answered the politician, "to have 
been so much absorbed with your business as to lose 
sight of the many changes of this progressive age. This, 
however, has been rather a change in name than in fact. 
Patriotism was only another name, sir, for loyalty. Both 
words mean fidelity to your government; patriotism and 
loyalty are synonymous terms : either may be used for the 
other. My friend here, the priest, who is a more profound 
scholar than I am, will correct me if I am wrong." 

" To some extent you are right," said the priest, 
smiling. " For our purpose your definition is not only 
correct, but most admirably expressed, — a pretty thing to 
show to the eyes of the blind, and a musical thing to 
tickle the ears of the deaf." 

" I don't understand you," said the politician, a little 
out of humor. 

''Well, gentlemen," answered the priest, "to make a 
sharp point, and to go rig-ht straight to it, George Wash- 
ington was a patriot and Benedict Arnold was a loyalist; 
Marion and Sumter were patriots, while the tories of 
the Carolinas and their Indian allies were loyalists." 

"I claim to be a loyalist," said the politician, with 
warmth, " and you don't mean to class me with Arnold 
and the tories of the Carolinas, do you ?" 

" I do not propose to class you at all," said the priest. 
" I was simply stating facts. Loyalty means fidelity to 
a reigning power, to an existing government. Patriotism 
means fidelity to your country and to the people of that 
country. In Europe loyalty means fidelity to the king, 
whether he be a father to his people or a tyrant and task- 
master. In America lo3^alty means fidelity to a particular 
party in power, whether it is trying to promote the good 
of the country and the happiness of the people, or to hold 
possession of the government for selfish and ambitious 
ends. Do you believe that, in imposing on the Southern 
people the infamous government you have just described, 
you had a proper regard for their rights and happiness, 



52 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

or for the welfare of the whole country ? Would you 
pretend to say that we, who are trying to make a mongrel 
race out of the common people of this country, in order 
that they and their children may be slaves forever, are 
acting with a just regard for their rights and happiness? 
Gentlemen, it is well for us that patriotism is forgotten. 
'Tis well for us that the word has become obsolete ; it 
will be well for us to let it sleep with the people. I look 
upon it as a dangerous word, especially in the bands of 
those who have forgotten its meaning." 

"Another finger-board!" said the bondautocrat, smiling. 

" I am afraid," said the priest, " that you and the 
politician will get off the road before we get to the end 
of our journey, despite all my finger-boards." 

"Mr. Priest," said the politician, "this is pretty plain 
talk of you, to say the least." 

"I am sorry," answered the priest, ," that it is neces- 
sary for me to talk so plain, for there are some things 
better understood than said. And yet they had better 
be spoken out plainly than not to be known. If w^e go 
into this business with our eyes shut we will certainly be 
swamped, — be hanged, I might say ; for if the people find 
out what we are up to, hanging will be considered too 
good for us." 

"I cannot but think," said the bondautocrat, "that the 
priest attaches more importance to this matter than it 
deserves." 

" That is my opinion, too," said the politician. " Look, 
for instance, at the governments of Europe ; every one 
of them is an aristocracy. Indeed, it seems to be a thing 
not hard to do, but something which comes of itself. It 
secm.s to follow as a matter of course from the very 
nature of the case. To tell the truth," continued the 
politician, "this thing of democracy is -all humbug; it 
never has succeeded, and never will." 

" I agree with you exactly," said the bondautocrat. 

"Gentlemen," said the priest, "the practicability of. 
democracy is a question which we need not discuss. 
It has been heretofore the government of this country, 
and the people believe in it. Nor will they give it up 
without a desperate struggle, unless they can be cheated 



THE FIRST WITNESS. 53 

out of it. The case of European governments is not analo- 
gous ; and even if it was, it would not bear the inference 
you propose to draw from it. We propose to do in a short 
time what it took the g'overuments of Europe generations 
and ages to accomplish. Nor indeed did Xhay succeed ex- 
cept by indirect means. Kings would make war upon neigh- 
boring states, and this would be a pretext for raising large 
armies. When the war was over the danger of another war 
would be a good excuse for keeping up the arni}^. ' In time 
of peace prepare for war' served the purpose of kings to gull 
the people, just as the cry of freedom and equality have 
served our purpose. After they succeeded in getting up 
large armies, and weaning those armies from the people 
by long separation, they could afford to disregard the 
people. The armies soon became attached to the kings, 
for they were the masters who fed and clothed them, led 
and drove them. More than that, these things were 
done when the European world were just emerging from 
barbarism. The wonderful facilities for giving informa- 
tion to the people, and enlightening them in regard to 
matters affecting their rights and happiness, did not exist 
then as they do now. Nor did every n»an then have a 
Bible in his house, that mortal enemy of oppression and 
tyranny. Aside from all these things, it is historically 
true that no state of Europe surrendered its liberties 
without more than one desperate struggle to prevent it. 
We had better look this thing straight in the face, and 
prepare to meet its many dangers, and not try to per- 
suade ourselves that it is a thing easy to be done. In- 
deed, my friend here, the politician, and myself, can afford 
to work hard to accomplish it ; and you, Mr. Bondauto- 
crat, can afford to pay well. It will secure to us and our 
children those peculiar and special privileges which the 
aristocracy, the politicians, and the priesthood enjoy 
under the governments of Europe. Much has already 
been done. A mighty revolution has been wrought in 
American politics. The whole plan and policy of our 
government has been changed. The spirit which origi- 
nated it and organized it is dead, — yes, to all intents and 
purposes, dead, for it can neither see nor hear, so nearly, 
gentlemen, does sleep resemble death. We have put the 

5* 



64 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

patient to sleep, and all that is necessary now is to keep 
on hand a plentiful supply of the opiates of infidelity. 
While the patient is asleep, do you make haste, Mr. Poli- 
cian, to perform your operation, and do it well. Open a 
vein and infuse a little negro blood ; and when the 
patient wakes up he will be as tame and spiritless as we 
would have him to be. What an admirable mudsill for a 
wealthy aristocracy ! No aristocracy of Europe has a serf- 
dom as subservient as ours will be, nor half as safe. Their 
serfs have in their veins the pure Caucasian blood, and in 
their heads 'the quick, fervid, flashing* brain of the Cau- 
casian. Every now and then the exaction of tyranny heats 
that blood to the boiling-point, and the friction of galling 
oppression sets that brain on fire ; and then loyalty and 
royalty, kings and their thrones, aristocracies with the 
gold, the pomp, and splendor which they have manufac- 
tured out of the sweat and tears of the people, are wasted 
in the 'consuming flames of that fire. Our mulattoes, 
quadroons, and octoroons will give us no trouble. This 
will be the beauty of our aristocracy ; it will last forever 
and never be disturbed by revolution." 

" Bat I have been told," said the bondautocrat, " that 
mongrel races will run out; and if it be true, what will 
become of our race of mules ?" 

" That is true," answered the preacher, — " a truth de- 
monstrated by science, history, and analogy. But, my 
dear sir, we can easily get around that difficulty : while 
it is running out we will keep running it in. In other 
words, we will keep up fresh infusions of blood from both 
sides. Ireland and Germany will supply us with fresh 
horses (poor white trash), and the supply of asses (ne- 
groes) on hand is pretty large. It will last for some time 
yet. By the time it runs out we will have the matter in 
our own hands, and can ship fresh supplies from Africa." 

" What !" interrupted the politician, " the ignorant, 
filthy negro, fresh from barbarism ?" 

"And why not?" answered the preacher. "The doc- 
trine which we are teaching the 'poor white trash' is, 
that a man is rather a better man for being a negro. It 
then follows as a matter of course, the better the negro 
the better the man. So the very lest man would be a 



THE FIRST WITNESS. 55 

simon pure, fresb from Guinea. These times," said the 
priest, " the negro is the model man. Now the character- 
istics of the negro are a broad foot, flat nose, and strong 
smell. The negro fresh from the sod would be the high- 
est model, for his foot would*be broader, his nose flatter, 
and his smell stronger; and as for the black skin, which 
seems to be above par just now, why the Guinea nigger 
would shine with all the brightness of a tropical polish. 
The easiest thing done in the world, sir \ We have 
already persuaded the people to believe that the negro is 
a noble race, so noble that although they have been sub- 
jected to the demoralizing and degrading tyranny of a 
brutal system of slavery for generations they are still 
equal to the white man. Now if this be true, and whether 
it is or not they believe it, could they hesitate to believe 
that a negro fresh from his native sunny home, where he 
has never been subjected to the debasing influences of 
slavery, is better than the white man ? This reasoning 
is so clear that no one can refute it." 

" Ah, my dear sir," said the politician, " the negro has, 
notwithstanding his slavery, been for a long time under 
the influence of our enlightened and progressive civiliza- 
tion ; and this has vastly improved his condition physic- 
ally, morally, and intellectually." 

" That," answered the priest, "is the argument of the 
slave-holder. He claims that he found the negro the 
most degraded of all barbarians, and that slavery is a 
system of education admirably suited to his natwre and 
condition ; that under his pupilage the negro progressed 
more rapidly towards civilization than any barbarian race 
ever did under any system of education. Now all of this 
is true if the negro is, as we have made the people believe, 
equal to the white man. The different families of the 
Caucasian race in Europe, who in their native barbarism 
were infinitely superior to the negro, have been under the 
influences of that same progressive civilization for over 
eighteen hundred years; and yet they are not educated 
up to a fitness for self-government. The very best of these 
nations have repeatedly made the experiment, and most 
signally failed. Why, only a few years ago, the people 
of this country had such high notions of citizenship under 



56 't'HE GREAT TRIAL. 

our government, its duties and responsibilities, that they 
believed even the German and Irish emigrants were not 
fit to be intrusted with it. I repeat it, sir : if slavery, 
which only a few generations ago found the negro so 
ignorant, so filthy, and so degraded an animal that he 
was hardly considered as belonging to the human species, 
has in this short space of time made him equal to the 
most virtuous and enlightened of the Caucasian race (for 
such we claim to be), and made him fit to enjoy the broad 
freedom and to discharge the grave duties of a citizen of 
the freest government in the world, then does it follow 
be3'ond a cavil that slavery is the most beneficent system 
of education ever devised by human wisdom. It would 
follow also that the slave-holder is the greatest benefactor 
of mankind ; so likewise would it follow that the deso- 
lating and destructive war which we have waged against 
those people is a crime without a precedent in the history 
of human wrongs " 

" Another cross-road for another finger-board," said the 
bondautocrat, smiling. 

" The same old cross-road, and the same old finger- 
board," said the priest. "I have come to it from a new 
direction, to see if you gentlemen would know it." 

" I see on it," said the politician, "■ the same old sign, 
' Don't wake up the people.'" 

"Exactly," said the priest; " a people who believed 
yesterday that they ought to sacrifice their lives to liber- 
ate a race of slaves from a debauching and degrading 
servitude, and to-day believe that those same slaves are 
as good or a little better than they are themselves, must 
be laboring uuder some dreadful infatuation, — an infatua- 
tion not less powerful than the witchery of infidelity." 

" I believe," said the politician, addressing the bond- 
autocrat, " that these priests have had us bewitched too. 
For really this is a view of this whole matter which had 
never occurred to my mind before." 

"I never trouble my mind," said the bondautocrat, 
" about your philosophies. My objection to slavery was 
that it was not a paying institution. Some years ago I 
visited a sister of mine down South, who had married a 
slave-holder ; and I came to the conclusion, while on 



THE FIRST WITNESS. 67 

that visit, that she and her husband were worse slavesthan 
their negroes. Their negroes were the slowest hands 
I ever saw, and then iheir improvidence, and neglect! 
why, they wasted half as much as they made. You have 
no idea what a trouble, too, it was to take care of the sick, 
the old, and decrepit. I laughed, and told them that my 
slaves up North did me twice as much service, without 
half the care and expense. I was opposed to it, gentle- 
men, simply because it wouldn't pa^. I strongly suspect 
that you, Mr. Politician, opposed it for the same reason ; 
you found it easier to abuse slavery and be a represent- 
ative of the people, with free access to the public crib, 
than to stay at home and work." 

" You guess well," said the politician, laughing. " An 
admission I would not like to make outside of this council- 
chamber ; but as our deliberations are strictly private and 
confidential, it don't matter. I suppose your outer door 
is locked," continued the politician, addressing the bond- 
autocrat. 

"Yes, sir," he answered, " I locked it myself." 

"And I," said the priest, "put in the iron bolt after 
you left it." 

"And wrote danger over the door," added the bond- 
autocrat, smiling. 

" Could the people know," said the priest, " the facts 
which have been disclosed here to-night, it would be a 
useless precaution to write danger over the door. Aye, 
your bolts and bars too would be useless, for they would 
melt in the fire of their auger." 

" I suppose, Mr. Priest," asked the bondautoerat, "that 
your opposition to slavery sprung from motives of benevo- 
lence ?*' 

" Benevolent motives like mine !" said the politician, 
with an expressive look; "benevolent feeling for himself 
and family." 

" 'Most as good at guessing- as the bondautoerat," said 
the priest. " Why is it that we are so reluctant to confess 
souje things, even to those who know the.m as well as 
ourselves? This is the point, gentlemen, I've been 
driving at all this time." 

" Well," said the bondautoerat, with a smile, " 1 
c* 



58 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

thought you were only driving at it, for I have never yet 
been able to see anything where you have been putting 
up all those finger-boards. Straight to it, Mr. Priest, 
and let us see the bugbear which has frightened you so 
often, and which you have used so repeatedly to frighten 
us with." 

"Then, gentlemen," answered the priest, "to be as 
candid as yourselves, I was oi)posed to slavery for the 
same reason that you were. I opposed it because I found 
that policy would pa?/ better. I advocated abolition for 
the same reason that I preached temperance, teetotal- 
ism, know-nothingism, mesmerism, spiritualism, woman's 
rights, equality, miscegenation, and so on. When these 
humbugs were first started, I set my face against them, 
because they were all clearly contrary to reason and 
Scripture. Not only did my conscience condemn them, 
but they were abhorrent to my feelings as a man. 
But when I compared my little old-fashioned church and 
the little assembly of plain, unpretending people who 
worshiped there, with the splendid new churches around 
me, when I looked at their fine organs, fine choirs, and 
their large rich congregations, I began to cave in. More 
especially was this the case, when I found out that men, 
with less than one-third the brains and information which 
I possessed, were getting three times as big a salary. 
My famil}^ too, complained. My wife was particularly 
bitter on my old-fogy notions, as she chose to call them. 
She complained, too, that whilst the daughters of other 
ministers were educated at boarding-schools and received 
into the first circles of society, her daughters had to 
go to common schools and to associate with common 
people. I never tried to reason with her, because I never 
in my life met with a woman who had the remotest idea 
of what reason is. If their whim is to do wrong, an 
angel couldn't persuade them out of it. And let it be 
said to their credit, if their whim is to do right, the devil 
couldn't beguile them to do wrong. I have often regret- 
ted that Mother Eve didn't take a prejudice to the tree of 
good and evil knowledge, for if she had we might have 
been in a paradise to this day. At length, fretted by my 
poverty, my pride, and the ceaseless importunities of my 



THE FIRST WITNESS. 59 

wife, I announced my intention to preach an anti-slavery 
sermon. I pretended to have examined the subject and 
found out my error; but henceforth my place would be 
in the very front rank of reformers. A great many 
people came out to hear me. Indeed, many admired my 
talents and learning who did not like my politics. I put 
my best foot forward, you may be sure, and my effort was 
applauded to the very echo. Sometimes the people would 
weep, sometimes they would laugh, and sometimes they 
would applaud. This latter demonstration seemed to me 
to be very much out of place. It gave me such a shock 
that I surely would have broken down, had it not occurred 
when I was nearly through. Not many of my own con- 
gregation had come out to hear me. The few who did 
come were so much offended that they got up and left 
the church. It seamed to them to be a horrible desecra- 
tion. The next day a committee w^aited on me from 
the church, to remonstrate against my course; when I 
refused to heed their kind but earnest remonstrance, they 
reminded me of my inconsistency. I answered tartly 
that good men saw their errors and repented of them ; 
only bad men hold on to them. They then asked me 
kindly but firmly to resign my charge, that they might 
get another minister. I told them I would do it with 
pleasure ; I did not want to preach for a people who did 
not desire to hear me. Gentlemen, excuse me ; I tremble 
yet to think of that parting scene. An old gray-headed 
man, who had been a father in the church and a father 
to me, was the last to shake hands with me. As his pal- 
sied hand grasped mine he looked into my face with that 
mingled expression of truth, love, and piety which we so 
often see in the faces of those who are about to start to 
their long home. Firm in his own integrity, yet weeping 
out of pity for an erring son, he let fall on my ears words 
which tingle there still. ' My son,' said he, ' I will 
start in a few days to the better land. My sands of life 
are nearly run out. One thought has cheered me and 
brightened the gloom of that dark valley through which 
I must soon pass. It was the thought that our little flock, 
ever pure and unspotted from the world, would come to 
me there, together with our loved pastor. But if vou 



60 THE CHEAT TRIAL. 

continue in your present course, you at least can never 
come to me. The frail bark you are now in cannot stem 
Jordan's angry flood ; but swiftly down the dark river of 
death will it sweep to that ocean whose waves are fire, 
and whose shores are eternity. This, this will be the 
last farewell.' Had the stars of heaven been mine, and 
they all of silver, I would gladly have given them to be 
able to recall one day of my life. Gladly would I have 
bid farewell to earth with all its glittering baubles ; all, 
yes all, rather than bid that sainted old man that last 
farewell. Often now does that tremulous voice break in 
upon my reveries, or startle my midnight sleep with those 
awful words, — ' This, this is the last farewell.' " 

The priest here became so deeply agitated that he 
could not control his feelings any longer. Even the bond- 
autocrat seemed to be touched with pity, and respected 
the pause. 

"For a month afterward," continued the priest, after 
recovering his self-possession, " I was receiving letters 
of congratulation upon my conversion to the cause of 
humanity. And then my church had turned me off. 
How delicious it is to be made a martyr of, especially 
in a bad cause ! I got directly a half-dozen calls to big 
churches." 

"Of course," said the politician, "you accepted the 
one which offered the biggest pay." 

" Not exactly," answered the priest. " For I found 
out upon inquiry that the pay there had been run up to 
the high-water mark, and was then rather on the ebb. I 
accepted the next best offer, because they were not as yet 
so heavily taxed, and were able to pay a good deal more. 
They did really in the next year double my salary. At 
once I set myself to work to please my new people, and 
whilst engaged in this study, I discovered why people 
would pay so much more for a preacher who would make 
abolition, free-love, and woman's rights speeches, than 
for one who would preach to them the truths of the gos- 
pel. I was not long in finding out the secret. I found 
this new Christianity was both cheaper and more palat- 
able than the truths of the Bible. Men who had spent 
the week in financial gambling, commercial chicanery, 



THE FIRST WITXKSS. 61 

political trickery, judicial sophistry, or indirectly filching 
from the poor their hard-enrned cash, would come oa. 
Sunday and hear a thrilling- appeal in behalf of the poor 
oppressed negro. They would get up a state of good 
feeling, shed a plentiful supply of tears, giv^e a few dol- 
lars to the church, and subscribe sometiiing for the pub- 
lication of some new book written in defense of the 
cause of humanity, that is, Maine liquor laws, mesmerism, 
spiritualism, woman's rights, etc. They would then go 
home fully satisfied that they had done God and man suffi- 
cient service not only to atone for the sins of the past week, 
but that the excess of charity deposited to their credit would 
be enough for the next week, should disease or accident 
burr}'- tliem suddenly to their account. At the end of 
the year it would be easy, out of a net income of several 
thousands, to give the priest a few hundreds, who had 
beguiled the long, tedious hours of Sunday with pleasant 
music and learned discourses, seasoned just to their taste. 
How cheerfully even could they give a fraction of their 
abundance to one who had opened the door of heaven 
wide euou'jfh for them to go in with all their sins on their 
backs! How very relishable, too, it made the sermon, 
to season it well with hatred of those who didn't belong 
to this new sect of Christians! When the prohibitory 
law was the mania, how I would abuse those who 
claimed that whisky and wines might be profitably used 
on some occasion^. How 1 used to abuse, as infidels, 
those who refused to believe in mesmerism, spiritualism, 
and all the other isms which have been set up by infi- 
delity to supplant Christianity. But my principal reli- 
gion was to hate and revile the slave-holder. How I 
would work up their feelings on this subject, utitil their 
hearts were filled with the bitterest hatred ! How much 
more palatable it is for the human heart to hate than to 
love! The measure of a man's Christianity was the 
degree of his hatred. The most devout Christian in my 
church (for he was the bitterest hater of the slave-holder) 
worked about a hundred laborers, and he would fleece 
them to the very bufi*. Besides hiring them always at 
re<luced wages, he would manage, by furnishing them 
with provisions and clothing, to get back half of the 

G 



62 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

small wages he had agreed to pay them. But then these 
poor devils were only ' poor white trash.' 

" Gentlemen, this religion, or rather irreligion, is a 
good religion for the rich ; but then the rich are only a 
very small proportion of the people. The great majority 
of the people are the laboring classes, and this religion 
don't sait them. Suppose somebody would preach to 
them Christianity, what a walking up there would be I 
It is a good religion for the common people. One of its 
marked characteristics, as given by its great Author, is, 
the poor have the gospel preached to them. Christianity 
says to the financial, commercial, and every other species 
of gambler, Thou shalt not steal. It says to the rich, 
Go and sell what thou hast, and give to the poor. It 
don't trifle with the laborer by giving him the bauble of 
suffrage and an imaginary equality, whilst he is toiling 
for wages which don't furnish the comforts, nay, hardly 
the necessaries, of life. It says, Thou shalt not muazle 
the ox which treads out the grain ; it says the laborer is 
worthy of his hire. It claims, too, for its great head the 
Creator, the fruits of the earth, and the cattle upon a 
thousand hills, not to pamper the few, and gratify their 
licentious lusts, but to feed and clothe and comfort all. 
I have no doubt, gentlemen," continued the priest, "the 
fact has never occurred to you that at the beginning of 
the war we had a worse system of slavery in the North- 
ern States than that which existed in the South. We 
bought our slaves, hundreds of thousands of them, at 
prices ranging from five hundred to two thousand dollars 
per head ; we bought them at these prices, too, to go to 
the slaughter-pens of war ; to endure the toils, the pri- 
vations, the dangers, and insults of a soldier's life ; to 
lose their arms and legs ; to lie unburied upon a hundred 
battle-fields, and to leave their wives widows and their chil- 
dren orphans. I say, to endure all these hardships, and to 
come to this awful end, we bought them at prices ranging 
from five hundred to two thousand dollars, to be paid in an 
uncertain and fluctuating currency, always at a discount. 
This was the estimate the masters put upon their slaves 
in this land of freedom and equality. And the estimate 
was just, for any number of purchases could be made at 



THE FIRST WITNESS. 63 

these rates. At the same time, negro slaves were selling 
in the South at prices ranging from fifteen hundred to 
three thousand dollars in gold. I mean young, hearty, 
and able-bodied men, such as we bought for the war. 
They, too, were bought, not to be subjected to the priva- 
tions and hardships of war, but to do honest labor ; not 
to be wounded, maimed, and destroyed, but to raise rice,- 
cotton, sugar, and tobacco, to feed and clothe mankind ; 
the purchaser bein^ bound, after the slave ceased to be 
serviceable, either from accident or age, to take care of 
him till death. What became of our slaves after the 
war was over ? We, indeed, give them a little land as a 
bounty; but this is away off in the wilderness. As it is 
wholly inaccessible to them, — for they are too poor to 
use it, — they are compelled to sell it at a mere nominal 
price to those who stayed at home during the war and 
made money. These parties buy it, and let it lie, to be 
a fortune some of these days for their children ; or else a 
number of them buy up these claims until they get a 
large body of land, and then they join and buy Congress 
to make a railroad through it. That's not all; these 
poor devils are put to work to pay back the money which 
was used to buy them with. For this money is a part 
of the government debt; and who pays that but the 
laboring classes, the same men who were bought up to 
do the fighting? The rich don't pay it; for, as oppress- 
ive as the taxes now are, they are getting richer. No, 
sir, it is the common people on whom all the burdens of 
debt must eventually fall. But, gentlemen, it seems to 
me to be useless to discuss this matter any further. You 
see that we are standing on dangerous ground. You 
see, too, the necessit}^ of doing our work quickly and 
thoroughly. We must move heaven and earth to get 
things in our power before the people wake up. When, 
we get the government in our hands, and this we must do 
at all hazards, let them wake up ; we can then afford to 
laugh at them. But, to put the thing beyond the possi- 
bility of danger, we must perfect this mule-breeding 
business. Let us once get a cross between the negro and 
' poor white trash,' and our work will be done for ever." 
" 1 think," said the boudautocrat, "there is some truth 



64 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

in your view of the matter, and some clanger, too. At 
all events, there will be nothing lost by being on the safe 
side." 

" I agree with you," said the politician ; " but I hardly 
think as much haste and precaution necessary as does 
my friend the priest." 

" You politicians," answered the preacher, " are a 
reckless set of men. You not only do things which are 
foolish and inexpedient, but you do such things when 
there is no earthly necessity for th(^. For instance, 
3''ou have imposed an unlimited stamp-tax on the people, — 
an extremely bad thing at best, because of its origin. It 
was one of those wrongs which led our fathers to throw 
off the authority of the British government and set up 
for themselves. Now, instead of trying to conceal the 
obnoxious association of this thing from the people, it 
would seem that you are trying to remind them of it 
constantly. For you have on every stamp the face of 
George Washington, whose memory is dear to the Ameri- 
can people, because he led their fathers successfully in that 
long and terrible struggle against this same infamous 
stamp-tax." 

*' You mistake," said the politician ; " it is not the same 
tax, but a very different one. That was taxation without 
representation." 

" Are not," said the preacher, " the children of Patrick 
Henry, of the Marions, of the Sumpters, and the children 
of the Lees, aye, the very descendants of Washington 
even, — are not the children of those noble men who gal- 
lantly flew to the help of our fathers, and made a com- 
mon cause with them, paying this stamp-tax without 
representation?" 

" They are rebels, and don't deserve representation," 
said the politician. 

" I find out," said the preacher, " that they who want 
to play the tyrant over their fellow-men are never at a 
loss for a plea. England had one, and a very good one 
in her own estimation, when she wanted to impose the 
stamp-tax on our fathers. England has one, and a good 
one in her own opinion to-day, for trampling Ireland un- 
der her feet. Russia bad one for blotting out the exist- 



THE FIRST WITNESS. 65 

ence of'PoIaad. Austria had an excuse for destroying 
the freedom of Hungary. France had an excuse for 
keeping Italy in chains. Indeed, every despot who has 
ever scourged the world has had an excuse for it, — one, 
too, which was good in his own estimation. We have 
an excuse for doing what we are now about, trying to 
make a race of mules out of the negroes and ' poor white 
trash.' But do you think the 'poor white trash' — if 
they knew what we were at — would consider our excuse 
a good one ? My dear sir, there is an extreme degree of 
folly in this thing of putting Washington's face on these 
stamps, which looks to me like infatuation. If we don't 
act with more prudence than this, the people will find us 
out; and then, as I said before, it were better for us if a 
millstone were hanged about our necks and we were cast 
into the midst of the sea. This stamp-tax ought to have 
been avoided anyhow, on account of its obnoxious asso- 
ciations,* Why, the rebels will say, and how will you 
answer them, that if they were never justifiable before in 
being rebels, they are now ; for you have imposed on 
them the same wrongs which led our fathers and their 
fathers to rebel. That rebellion we justify and applaud. 
They will say they fought us because they Ijelieved that 
we intended to impose those grievous wrongs on them. 
By imposing those wrongs as soon as we got the power 
in our hands, and that, too, in the most palpable and 
unpopular shape, we justify both their suspicious and 
their conduct." 

" Well," said the politician, " after all, we are only fol- 
lowing the example of your profession. After the war 
w^as over, and I saw the South a heap of ruins; when I 
saw the mothers at the graves of their sons, like Pk^achel 
weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted 
because they were not, I could not but pity them, as 
badly as I hated them and as earnestly as I worked 
against them. About that tinje I read a long discourse, 
in w4iich the author took occasion to mock at those 
wretched mothers and to insult their woe. There was a 
heartlessness in this thing which looked to me heathenish. 
Whose image and superscription do you suppose I found 
on this discourse? none other than his who died for his 



66 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

enemies, bis who, when be looked over Jerusalem/that 
proud and rebellious city, and saw, with the eye of 
prophecy, the woes which w^ere about to overtake it, 
wept. Yes, he wept for them who were preparing to 
slay him. How different, too, was his language : ' O 
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered 
thy children together, even as a ben gathereth her brood 
under her wings !' And yet this discourse I speak of, 
so bitter and malevolent, had on it the sign of the cross, 

for it was signed the Rev. , the chief priest of your 

sects; I say sects, because I don't know whether he 
belongs to the Pharisees or Sadducees : I suspect the 
latter, for he certainly don't believe in a hereafter." 

** I know whom you mean," said the preacher ; " he 
repented of that afterward, and recommended a kind and 
conciliatory policy towards the South." 

"1 know how much he repented,''' said the politician, 
" Such a monster may repent of some unintentional good 
he has done, but never of evil. That crafty old Machia- 
velli who runs the machine at Washington, and watches 
so closely the changes of political sentiment, wanted a 
good strong weather-cock to see if the heavy gale wbich 
had been blowing from the north, and bearing the ship of 
state along with it, had not subsided enough for them 
to make headway against it. He duped this creature 
with false promises, or equivocal ones at least, such as 
he always makes, to become his weather-cock. When 
he found the current was too strong to be stemmed, he 
left the weather-cock to be blown away or to turQ^with 
the wind. The world was amused to see this weather- 
cock — for such he is and ever has been — a mere negative 
thing, without a spark of moral courage, that vital and 
inherent life-principle ,which gives motion to noble bodies, 
and enables them to move against the times and tides 
around them. — I say that the world was amused to see 
this weather-cock, so contrary to the nature of the thing, 
fluttering for a time against the wind. They did not 
know that it had been electrified by the touch of political 
power and patronage. It didn't last long, however. A 

heavy gale from his church at put the thing back 

in its place, and showed to the world that a weather-cock 



TEE FIRST WITyFSS. Ct 

is only a weather-cock after all. Hi?, rich paymasters at 

his fine church iu murmured their dissent; and 

the thought of losing ten thousand a year, without the 
certainty of high political preferment, was too much 
wind for even a big weather-cock. Most truly has he 
repented of the little good he proposed to do to the 
South, and followed those bitter and revengeful inclina- 
tions of his cowardly soul with a new zeal." 

" This mule-breeding business, gentlemen," interrupted 
the bondautocrat with a smile, " is a big undertaking ; 
but really I would rather try my hand at that than to 
attempt to make honest men of you two, if half you say 
of each other be true. I think," he added, "that it would 
be easier to make mules out of the negro and ' poor white 
trash' than to make patriots and Christians of politicians 
and preachers." 

"As to being a Christian," said the politician, "I 
never made any pretensions to that. My friend the 
priest can answer for himself." 

" 1 suppose," said the priest, " I am just about as good 
a Christian as you are a patriot." 

" Well, really," answered the politician, " I never claimed 
to be a patriot any further than patriotism means loyalty." 

"And that," said the preacher, "is just far enough to 
get the loaves and fishes, and not " 

" And not," put in the politician, " far enough, brother, 
to honor the miracle that made them." 

"Gentlemen," said the bondautocrat, "to talk seems 
to be the business of both your professions ; to act is the 
business of mine. Let us determine upon a plan of 
operations for the future, and go to work." 

" Well," said the preacher, " it is my part of the busi- 
ness to prepare the minds of the people for miscegena- 
tion ; yours, Mr. Politician, to make the thing practical 
by legislation ; and yours, Mr. Bondautocrat, to pay 
expenses. Take care, Mr. Politician, to so shape the 
policy of the government that we can use force, if per- 
suasion fails; for this purpose we must get the whole 
power into our own hands." 

"I was afraid at one time," said the politician, "that 
our impeachment scheme would fail. Indeed, many of 



68 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

our party were timid, and hesitated to go into it until 
the New York democracy came to our aid. When they 
passed those resolutions at the Cooper Institute and 
other places, declaring that, notwithstanding the thing 
was wicked, and unconstitutional, and revolutionary', 
they would nevertheless submit to it if we did it, there 
was no further trouble. Had they taken a bold and 
determined stand against impeachment, we never could 
have carried the thing through." 

"Ah," said the priest, "Mr. Bondautocrat and myself 
were watching that thing; we prepared those resolu- 
tions, and put them into the hands of their leaders. The 
same game, you remember, Mr. Politician, we played at 
the beginning of the war. There was really no necessity 
for the war, and if the Democratic party had taken a bold 
stand against it there really could not have been any 
war. Indeed, three-fourths of the Southern people were 
opposed to the war and opposed to disunion. But when 
we forced on them an invasion of their country they 
were bound to take sides. There were, in the State of 
Virginia alone, a majority of sixty thousand opposed 
both to war and to disunion. By the way, they were 
those men of high courage and unshaken purpose who, 
when they did go into the thing, held out to the bitter 
end. They — the Union men of the South — held out 
against us long after the Secessionists had caved in. I 
repeat, had the Democratic party of the North determined 
that there should be no war, there never would have 
been any disunion, for a majority of the Southern States 
would h-ave refused to go out. In a few years the cotton 
States would have been tired of shivering outside in the 
cold, and would have been glad to come back. But, sir, 
that would have defeated our policy, and destroyed all 
our plans. We would have had no big debt by which 
to build up a grand aristocracy; we would have had no 
mongrel breed of slaves to build our aristocracy on ; and 
then we would have had no grand and powerful govern- 
ment like those of Europe — nothing, sirs, but a simple 
economical democracy, in which the aristocracy and 
priesthood enjoy no special privileges. But we went to 
work and bought up the Democratic leaders with gold 



THE FIRST WITNESS. 69 

and office together, until we ^ot the rank and file into 
the army, and then we kicked the leaders out. The same 
game we will play again. Let them meet at the Cooper 
Institute, and wherever else they please, and pass their 
resolutions; we will make the same bargain with the 
rabble that old Frederick of Prussia did with his ' poor 
white trash.' ' My people,' said that wise king, ' may say 
what they please, so long as they let me do as I please.' " 

" I am atVaid," said the bondautocrat, " they will beat 
us in the elections next fall."* 

"And what if they do?" answ^ered the politician; 
" while we have the power of impeachment they may 
elect as many Presidents as they please. My dear 
sir," continued he, " we will manage the business like 
that eminent statesman, Count Bismarck, is doing it in 
Prussia to-day : he gives universal suffrage to the people, 
bids them elect whom they please; and then he tells 
their representatives what to do. So, when the people 
send members of Congress here who don't suit us, wc 
will send them back; and when they elect their Presi- 
dent, if he does not suit us we will impeach him. We 
will make Andy Johnson an example, and his case will 
serve as a precedent. Universal suffrage ! Yes, we will 
let them all vote, negroes, women and all,, just so long 
as they will let us hold on to the government and exer- 
cise its powders. The Southern States we have all right, 
and if it becomes necessary we will pass a law, just be- 
fore the presidential election, allowing the negro to vote 
in the Northern States. We must wait with that, how^- 
ever, until the political excitement gets high, so high 
that our own party will be willing to accept anything 
rather than be beaten ; and then, just long enough before- 
hand to get the benefit of this thing, we will pass a law 
allowing the negroes to vote in all the States. If all the 
negroes vote, we will be able to outvote them. If the 
people won't let them vote, as will be the case in some 
places, we will call that fraud and violence, and reject 
the election. The fact of the business is, nothing is 
wanted but a bold front and determined action to carry 

* This was written in 1868. 



10 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

us through. The Northern people who have property 
will let the government go, yea, every vestige of it, be- 
fore they will resist. Resistance might lead to war ; 
war would endanger their property, and their property 
is dearer to them than their democracy, their country, or 
their liberties. Indeed, men who have property are 
right, for under strong governments property is more 
secure and enjoys always peculiar privileges. A strong 
government always for the rich : it will in time secure 
to them the honors and emoluments of aristocracy. We 
need have no fears of that class of society ; 'tis only 
the 'poor white trash' who are likely to give us trouble. 
The only effectual way of taming them that I know of 
will be to get a little negro blood into their veins," 

"I have thought," said the preacher, "that it would 
help the business along very much for some of our party 
who have talent and influence to marry their daughters 
to negroes. It would be unpleasant, 'tis true, but we 
must do a great many unpleasant things to accomplish 
our purpose. It goes a great way with the ' poor white 
trash' for some of their leaders to set them an example. 
Suppose one of you gentlemen lead off." 

"My daughters," said the politician, a good deal ex- 
cited, "have been differently educated." 

"Mr. Priest," put in the bondautocrat, with a wily 
smile, "as this is a moral question, it seems to belong to 
your profession particularly to set the example." 

"My dear sir," answered the priest, "I am too poor. 
My salary is large, it is true, but yet it takes it all to 
keep my family up to the top of society. That society 
thinks like we do, that this is a very good thing for the 
'poor white trash,' but a very bad thing for the first 
circles. If a negro should come into my family we 
would have to come down, and I, perhaps, would lose 
my salary besides. If I was rich like you, it would be 
a different thing. A man who is rich can do what he 
pleases, and nobody calls him to account. It would be 
the very making of my friend the politician ; it would 
make him popular with the 'poor white trash,' who do 
the voting, and this would secure for him any office he 
might desire." 



THE FIRST WITNESS. 71 

"Gentlemen," said the politician, a good deal out of 
temper, " I am willing-, as I said before, to do anything 
but go to the devil or to send my daughters there; and 
as marrying my daughters to negroes would amount to 
about the same thing, it is out of the question to talk 
about it." 

"I think," said the bondautocrat, ''it would look 
better in the priest than in either of us, and have niore 
weight besides; so if you will go into it, Mr. Priest, 
I will guarantee the pay." 

"The pay," said the priest, absorbed in thought: "the 
pay — how much, sir?" 

"Why," said the bondautocrat, " dollars for your 

daughter and dollars for yourself." 

"Change the figures a little," said the preacher: "— - 
dollars for my daughter and — dollars for myself. My 
daughter, sir, will have to move in a different circle, and 
won't need so much. A little will make her comfortable 
in ihe society in which she will have to move. As a 
compensation for the loss of one of my daughters, I will 
spend this money in lifting the others higher up. Indeed, 
my daughters too are educated against this thing ; but 
one of them is not so bright as the rest,' and her disposi- 
tion, too, is kind and confiding. I think — yes, I think — 
I can persuade her to it. My family won't like it, either; 
but then the idea of heiyig rich, — yes, sir, the idea of 
being rich! — I think that will do the work,-:-! think 
that will do the work,'' repeated the preacher to himself. 
"The pay, sir, the po,y^ — when may I expect that?'' 

" The half of it I will put in the hands of our friend 
here to-morrow, and the balance as soon as the matter 
shall be settled." 

"Well, gentlemen," said the preacher, "as it is late I 
will bid you good-night. We must meet often to report 
and consult. Let none of our secrets get out; we must 
tell nobody outside, of our league, not even our wives. 
Good-night!" 

"Well, I am poor," said the politician, "and don't 
profess to be over-conscientious; but before I would 
marry one of my pretty daughters to a negro, I would 
turn soldier and eat hard-tack. Marry my daughter to 



72 Tilh: GREAT TRIAL. 

a negro! — my offspring and theirs degraded forever! 
Sooner would I follow them to the grave! yea, sooner 
would I see their beauty blasted by the plague, the leprosy, 
or any other curse that heaven might send ou them !" 

"I agree with you," said the bondautocrat. "I love 
money: it has been the object of my life to make it; to 
make money is mv hope for the future; and yet, rather 
than m}^ daughter, so beautiful and accomplished, should 
lose her beauty — her pretty blushes and her pretty blue 
eyes — in the dark, dead skin of the negro, and his 
glaring, glassy eyes, I would go from the city to the 
mountains, and from a palace to a cabin! What man- 
ner of men are these preachers, anyhow? I never ac- 
counted myself a very good man, but surely I never 
dreamed of a man as bad as that fellow. He has talents ; 
he has learning. He told me truths here to-night that I 
never knew before; indeed, he seems to know almost 
everything, and yet I never met with a man so bad. I 
never thought much of these priests; really I never 
thought much about them any way. I took them to be 
men of soft hearts and mostly of soft heads. This 
fellow has any amount of brains, but no heart at all. He 
must certainly be an exception, — a black sheep in the 
laock." 

"Not by any means," answered the politician. "The 
good man is the exception in this profession. I have 
been thrown a good deal with them, and have found 
them to be, as a class, the most villainous and heartless 
men in the world. Of late years it has gotten to be 
very common for these priests to turn politician, and I 
have found them, almost without an exception, to be 
mean and unprincipled men. I think it is the large ac- 
cession to our profession from that class which has made 
the name politician the synonym of scoundrel. Look at 
the proceedings of their synods and conferences after the 
war: they exhibit nothing but a spirit of the most ran- 
corous hate. Could they have had the power they would 
have gone down South and taken possession of all the 
church property. More than that, sir: I verily believe 
they would have compelled those unfortunate people to 
attend their preaching of malevolence, hate, and abuse. 



iiif: first wrryKss. 73 

or put tlieni to the rack and torture. What is most re- 
markable is that all their ecclesiastical bodies — all the 
Protestant ones, at least (1 am a Protestant, and keep 
posted about their doings) — showed the same cruel and 
ruthless spirit of revenge. I indeed had do love for the 
rebels, and yet I could not but pity their wretched situ- 
ation after the war. I wanted to destroy their govern- 
ment; but these priests, from the way they talked and 
acted, would have destroyed them both soul and bod3\ 
I am sure that not one of them in a hundred has any 
idea of the better instincts of humanity, much less of the 
divine benevolence of the Christian religion. But it is 
late, and we must part. Good-night, sir ; I wish you 
pleasant dreams." 

"I think," said the bondautocrat, smiling, "I shall 
dream to-night of stars and garters, coronets, dukedoms 
and lordships." 

"You shall realize them all some of these days," re- 
plied the politician, "if our plans are only successful." 

"So good-night, my lord, good-night." 



*li THE GREAT TRIAL. 



THE SECOND WITNESS. 

A POOR man came upland made this complaint; a 
neighbor, or rather a man living in his neighborhood, 
bad stolen his horse; not that exactly either, but had 
taken his horse without his knowledge, and held him 
against his consent upon some flimsy pretext of owner- 
ship. His friends advised him to go to the court of 
justice, and petition the court to compel the party to 
restore the property. 

As he was an uneducated man, and not familiar with 
the etiquette. practiced in those courts, he employed an 
officer of the court to present his prayer for him. The 
petition was drawn up vvitii great formality, and offered 
to the court. The party who had taken his horse had 
employed another officer of the court to object to the 
petition, and to show the court it was not just. This 
party read the petition, and made numerous objections 
Finally, after a long discussion, in which the officers 
of the court abused each other and each other's clients, 
the petition was handed to the court. The court 
decided that it could not consider the petition at all, be- 
cause its language was :iot polite. It seemed that my 
lawyer (for this is the name of mese officers of the court) 
had omitted to put in the petition two little lawyer's 
words, in detinue, and this so offended the dignity of 
the court that he threw the petition out and refused to 
try the case on its merits at all. 

I wanted my lawyer to put these little words in, but 
the court would not consent. I wondered why that was 
called a court of justice, which refused to hear a poor 
man's petition simply because its own officers did not 
understand its parlance. I supposed of course that the 
oourt would order this officer, whose ignorance or neglect 
iiad subjected me to delay and expense, to pay iwe ; but 
what was my surprise when it ordered me to pay the 
fellow, for his blunder, and the other officers who had 



THE SECOND WITXESS. ♦75 

made a record of it ! I wondered if he kept the record 
to show to his children. Mj law\ er, however, assured 
me that my claim was just, and that he would mend the 
form of my suit so as to make it unobjectionable to the 
court. So I paid the costs, one-fourth the value of the 
property I claimed, and left with the promise that if I 
waited patiently for three mouths the court would con- 
descend to hear my cause. 

At the expiration of the time appointed, the case came 
up, and as the form was polite in its language we pro- 
ceeded to trial. Innumerable witnesses were introduced, 
and examined upon almost every question except the 
one in controversy. After the testimony was all taken 
down, the lawyers of both sides showed^ by certain laws 
made for other cases, that each party was entitled to the 
horse : the party who had stolen him more especially, 
because he had possession of him. After these learned 
and able arguments the matter was submitted to twelve 
judges. They retired to a private room, to consult and 
make up a verdict. Their brains were so muddled by 
the sophistries of the lawyers, and the contradictory 
rules of law which each party had laid down to suit his 
own side, that it was a long time before they knew 
whether they were standing on their heads or feet. 
Finally, one old fellow, who had horses to lose himself, 
asked this question : Gentlemen, if I could take a horse 
from one of you, ought I not to be made pay for it ? 
Certainly, answered all of them. Well, it is evident to 
my mind that this old man's horse was taken without 
compensation. "But the law, the law I" answered a 
half-dozen. As to the law, he answered, there seems to 
be as much on one side as the other, and we will just let 
that go for what it is worth. They all agreed that this 
was a correct view of the case, and came out with a 
verdict for me. 

The opposite party claimed that as my claim was 
made up of two separate sums, that I could only recover 
one of them, and the smaller one at that. The learned 
judge decided that as the amount claimed by me was in 
two sums, and there was a line between them, I could 
i»ot recover but one; for, said ho, with the wise look of 



•76 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

a Solomon, a line is not the sign of addition in this 
court, and therefore the two sums can't be added up. 
The old man said he could well understand how a line 
might not be the sign of addition, but he couldn't for his 
life tell why he should lose his horse because an officer 
of the court didn't understand the court's arithmetic. 
Thinking there was some mistake in calling this place a 
court of justice, I concluded to take the small fraction of 
ray claim which they had allowed, and get as fast away 
from the place as possible. So I asked them to pay me, 
and let me go. 

Sir, answered the clerk, we don't work here for 
nothing. It will take this money, and more too, per- 
haps, to pay your expenses in this suit. Startled at this 
announcement, I made haste to get away. Just as I 
was mounting my horse (for I had one other left), an- 
other officer of the court caught him by the bridle, and 
said, "Not so fast, old man; this horse is ours." 
"Yours? no, sir! I raised him from a colt." "But 
your suit here ! the costs in that will take this horse 
to pay for it." I told him, said the old man, I had 
already come to the conclusion that courts of justice are 
gambling shops, where men meet to throw high dice, 
and pay half the stake for the privilege of a throw; but 
when you come to take all, and all the balance a man 
has, this is a new wrinkle, something new and some- 
thing worse. "As a general thing," he answered, "we 
doti't take more than half of the stake. Sometimes, how- 
ever, we take all ; and, occasionally, where the suitor is 
very weak and very ignorant, we take all the stake and 
all the bnlance he has." 

The old man further said these courts of justice re- 
minded him of a school kept in his neighborhood when 
he was a boy. The old pedagogue was smart enough 
when teaching the boys their A, B, C, and ciphering as 
far as the rule of three; but he was exceedingly crazy 
on the subject of learning. He looked upon a liberal 
education as the highest gO(Hl, and upon the man who 
was fortunate enough to possess it as something more 
than mortal. His peculiar weakness, though, was mathe- 
matics. Mistaking the arbitrary rules which he found 



THE SFCOND WITNESS. "77 

laid down, with their limited and relative value, for 
fundamental truths, he believed, like many smarter and 
crazier men, that not only the material universe, but 
the attributes and perfections of the Deity even, could 
be measured by them. Nor did it ever enter his head 
that there might be too much of a good thing even. If 
rules are good, and surely they are, why then the more 
of them the better. And if the few siujple ones we Jinow 
are good, surely those deep and complex ones we don't 
know must be better still. 

So did the old man reason about this hobby. These 
are sound principles ; now for their application. The 
more rules I have to govern my school the better. The 
more comj)lex these rules are, the better. Therefore will 
I make many rules, and make them out in a jargon 
which nobody understands, not even myself. As the 
old man had never seen a Greek or Hebrew book, and, 
had never been taught Egyptian hieroglyphics or Arabic 
characters, he was driven to the necessity of inventing 
something to answer his purpose. This was not hard 
to do, however, for learning is always fertile of inven- 
tions. Tlie discoverers of science have this great advan- 
tage : they begin where everybody else has stopped. 
They are taken as the story of a traveler .to some un- 
known country: accepted without dispute ; because, as 
nobody else has ever been there, nobody can dispute its 
truth. I shall never forget the day the old man opened 
his school. " Boys," he said (with that pompous air and 
dictatorial manner which belong to that class of men), 
'* boys, let it be understood once for all that this school 
will be governed by rules. And the great rule upon 
which every other rule is founded is this, that every boy, 
it will be presumed, knows what the rules are; so it will 
be no excuse for a boy who breaks a rule to say that he 
did not know what the rule was." 

The old master then hauled out sixteen reams of 
musty foolscap, tracked all over with the strangest- 
looking characters you ever saw. Out of this he pro- 
ceeded to read his rules. He had not gone far, however, 
until he laid aside his vast pile of rules, remarking as he 
did so that, as it would occupy the whole quarter, he pro- 

7* 



7g THE GREAT TRIAL. 

posed to teach, to read tliem all, he would jast take it for 
iranted that we knew them. How the illiterate country 
3oys stared with mouths agape at the wisdom which 
could read such strange stuff as that! One poor fellow, 
I remember, carried his admiration for his master's 
wisdom so far as to get a sound thrashing for it. He had 
ust begun to study the art of making letters and figures, 
ivithout, however, any definite idea of their meaning or 
purpose. So one day he covered the whole side of his 
elate with unmeaning marks of almost every shape and 
size. With an air of one conscious of having done some- 
thing extraordinary, he walked up to the old pedagogue, 
handed him his slate, and asked hini very politely to read 
that. The old master in a towering passion cried out, 
'* You fool ! how do you expect me to read such stuff as 
that ?" " Why, master," said the boy, as much surprised 
at the master's ignorance as the master was at his, — 
"Why, master, I thought anybody who could read your 
rule-book could read •anything." 

It turned out afterward that this wonderful rule-book 
was the manuscript of some old schoolman to prove 
that the earth is a flat surface, and stationary, while the 
celestial bodies move round it. It was written in Greek. 
By some accident it had fallen into the hands of the old 
pedagogue, and being told that it contained the rules 
which governed the celestial bodies, he concluded they 
would do to govern a school as well, at least with some 
changes, for change always means reform. One day, 
while examining with the close and critical eye of a phi- 
losopher the foot of a chicken which his wife had killed 
for a broil, he concluded that it would answer, in lieu of 
something better, the place of Greek type in revising and 
altering his book of celestial rules, so as to make them 
serve the purpose of governing a school. So he took 
the chicken-foot, dipped it in ink, and tracked over the 
whole manuscript. 

Two years afterward the old man turned over his 
school to a brother chip, having become too old to man- 
age it. He turned over also the book of rules, for which 
he expected to have no further use. And since change 
means reform in modern philosophy, although it boasts 



THE SECOXD Wiry ESS. t9 

that its principles are the legitimate deductions of reason 
and logic, the new master had to change the rules. For 
this purpose he got a duck's foot, and tracked the old 
manuscript ov'er again. It made sad havoc, indeed, with 
the original Greek characters, and marred the beauty of 
many of the chicken -tracks ; but what of that? — there 
has been a change, and of course the thing must be better 1 
The same boy who got whipped for the chicken-tracks 
got a thrashing for the duck-tracks too. He was some- 
what of a wag, and the new master overheard him say, 
one day, that the master had done wrong for lecturing 
him for not knowing that a duck-track means that a boy 
must swallow tobacco juice to keep from spoiling the 
floor; and further, that if the good master had a stripe 
for every one of his duck-tracks which he did not know 
the meaning of, his posterior would be so tender that he 
would not be able to sit down for a month. 

The last I saw of the old master vyas at a public sale 
in the country, and this was some years after the inci- 
dents I've just mentioned. I was talking to a group of 
men, as is usual at such places, when thev came up, both 
of them riding asses. I thought that was nothing out 
of place, considering the fact that they were learned 
philosophers. Among the group I spoke of was the 
waggish boy whom both of them had thrashed. He 
was now a sprightly, quick-witted man. He provoked 
a discussion at once with the learned pedagogues by 
some disparaging remarks about mathematics, for this 
was a weak point with both the philosophers. So eager 
were they to defend their favorite hobby that they did 
not even take time to dismount and hitch their asses. 
Their old pupil insisted that the simplest rules of arith- 
metic were only relatively and conditionally true ; that 
it was not absolutely true that two and two make four. 
"For," said he, ])ointing to the fence where horses were 
hitched, "two horses and two fence-stakes will make 
neither four horses nor four fence-stakes." The old mas- 
ters angrily and philosophically replied that they could 
not expect anything better from him; "for," said they, 
" we never could teach you anything when a boy, nor beat 
any knowledge into you." With this remark they started 



go THE GREAT TRIAL. 

a^ay ; but their old pupil, a little nettled, called a halt, 
and begged their forgiveness for having expressed himself 
so positively. "Indeed," he added, "the present discus- 
sion has thrown much light on the subject, and led me to 
question seriously the correctness of my former views. 
"I begin to think," he continued, "that two and two do 
make four: for instance, two philosophers and two jack- 
asses make four " " Begone, you impertinent rascal !" 

shouted both of the old masters, at the same time digging 
their beasts with their heels and trotting away. 

Since the so-called courts of justice, under the pretense 
of restoring one horse, stole another from me, I have 
paid some attention -to their doings. Cannot any one 
who has attended their courts trace the close resemblance 
betw^een them and the schools which I have just de- 
scribed ? What are the laws themselves but chicken- 
tracks and duck-tracks? Who knows what they are? 
The legislatures who make them don't know; the law- 
yers who devote their lives to the study of them differ 
as to their meaning; the judges who interpret them differ. 
Has he not seen two opposing counsel get up and each 
one prove that his side is the right side, and prove it, too, 
bythe same musty calfskin? Has he not seen a magis- 
trate decide a case one way, a jury revei'se the decision, 
the judge overrule their decision, and a higher court re- 
verse it again ? If they had nothing to guide them but 
laws about celestial bodies, written in Greek, and revised 
by chicken-tracks, could they disagree more than they 
do? Has he not seen murderers set at liberty by undue 
influence brought to bear upon tlie judges ? Has he not 
seen thieves shielded from the penalties due their crimes 
by some wretched technical quibble? Has he not seen 
the heads of the judges so puzzled by the sophistries of 
learned counsel that they did not know whether they 
W'ere standing on their heads or heels? Has he not seen 
numbers of cases kei)t in court, at an enormous expense, 
for years, which were so plain that any sensible njan in 
the community could have decided any one of them in 
an hour and at one hundredth part of the cost? Has 
he not seen the guilty go free, the innocent go unpro- 
tected, the just man wronged, the ignorant cheated, the 



THE SECOXB WITS ESS. 81 

weak crushed, and the poor robbed ? Has he not seen 
truth perverted, and the ends of justice utterly defeated 
by the application of arbitrary rules, miscalled princi- 
ples ? 

To give you an illustration of the last-mentioned 
wrong-: two gentlemen, acquaintances of mine, found an 
old survey claimed by nobody, lying between their farms, 
which they supposed before joined. They agreed to 
divide it equally between them, each keeping the part 
next to his ow^n farm, and held by him before in posses- 
sion. Each selected a friend to act as his agent in divid- 
ing the land. Their instructions were to first throw out 
any portion of said land covered by other surveys which 
the parties held by undisputed title, the balance to be 
divided according to quality. It w^as further especially 
agreed between the parties, that in case it turned out 
any time afterward that either party had a better title 
to any part of the land so divided, it should be relin- 
quished by the other party, and a new division made. 

In surveying the land, it appeared that a portion of it 
was covered by an older title of one of the parties, and 
it was thrown ou^, and the balance divided. Shortly 
afterward it was ascertained that the other party had a 
good and substantial title to nearly all the good laud in 
the one tract which had been divided. But as the party 
who had got the advantage in the trade was dishonest 
enough to take advantage of the quibbles of the law, the 
other party had to be the loser; the matter had been 
admitted to record in the court, and no oral testimony 
could change it. For the sake of maintaining an arbi- 
trary rule the court refused, upon the testimony of two 
witnesses, whose evidence against any person in the 
community would have sent him to the penitentiary or 
gallows, to expunge from its record a palpable fraud. 
And this, with an impudence which knows no blush, they 
dubbed principle. 

One of the old masters I've described was appointed 
to make a map of the country. Having no practical 
knowledge of the country, he got the direction of a river, - 
which ran through the neighborhood at a particular 
place, and on his plat traced it on in the same direction 



82 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

into another river. The officer who had employed him 
complained of this, and told him that the river emptied 
into another river, in a different direction. The old man 
sat down to show him his calcuhition, and that following- 
this principle the river must empty there. "My dear 
sir," interrupted the officer, "your principle may be a 
very good thing to follow, and a river is easily led ; but 
I think you could hardly persuade it to follow your prin- 
ciple across two mountains." Just so may learned law- 
yers make arbitrary rules out of principle in their theories, 
and draw them out in straight lines on paper; but when 
they attempt to do it in practice, they must by some un- 
natural means force them across those mountains which 
justice has planted in their way. One would be just as 
likely to find justice by following arbitrary rules as he 
would be to find the mouth of a river by taking its course 
at some particular point and following that course. 
Principles so understood have no positive value, no in- 
trinsic excellence. Just as the meanderings of a river 
are determined by the adjacent country, so are principle? 
determined by attendant circumstances. If any princi- 
ple could be followed as an arbitrai^r rule, it would be 
safe to say that a man who beats a fellow-man ought to 
be punished. And yet who would say that a man ought 
to be punished for beating a rake to shield the virtue of 
a wife or daughter from his beastly lusts? 

For six thousand years man has been trying to build 
a tower of Babel to heaven. All his efforts have had 
the same result, a confusion of tongues and a failure 
of purpose. He has tried innumerable systems of laws 
and systems of religion. They have all brought him 
to the same melancholy end, the politicians' fool and 
the priests' slave. I verily believe that man's only hope 
for happiness is the utter destruction of these vast 
engines of oppression. Drive the politicians and priests 
into the sea : the one sits like a nightmare upon the body 
politic, and the other upon the souls of men. 

But these wiseacres will ask, how are we to get along 
without them and their systems? There was a time in 
the history of human-kind when these were pertinent 
questions, when man left to the g'uidance of reason 



THE SECOND WITNESS. 83 

groped his way in heathenish darkness. Heaven, in 
its nierey, sent him wise and good rneu, divinely com- 
missioned to be his leaders and examples. To his chosen 
})eople he sent the Abrahams, the Jacobs, the Moseses, 
the Joshuas, and the prophets. To heathen nations he 
sent the Lycurgi, the Solons, the Socrates, the Platos, 
and those great poet-prophets, Homer, Virgil, and so on. 
It was wise and virtuous in these people to follow, for 
they had no better guides. And while they followed 
their leaders they were wise, and virtuous, and happy. 
But when their leaders, and prophets, and lawgivers 
passed away, bad men, in the name of progress and re- 
form, or freedom and humanity, commenced building sys- 
tems of their own; and mankind, deluded by their 
promises and deceived by theii^ tricks, were soon reduced 
to moral and political slavery. Ever since the world 
was created, the Creator has held communion with his 
creatures. To different races of mankind, to different 
nations, and in diiferent ages, he has made different reve- 
lations of his being, his character, and purposes. God 
the father of all has left no nation or family of his crea- 
tures without a religion. Indeed, this is the distinction, 
and only distinction, between man and the brute. 

By religion I mean not only our knowledge of a su- 
])reme Being, and our accountability to him, but also our 
capability to please or displease him. We indeed who 
live under the light and wisdom and benevolence of the 
Christian religion are disposed to look upon nations who 
have other systems as being without any religion. Their 
faith we stigmatize as a superstition ; but because the 
Creator has chosen to give to one age or nation a clearer 
dispensation of his government is no reason why other 
ages or nations have been left without any knowledge of 
God and his truth. Shall we say the Greeks had no re- 
ligion because the Jew^s had a better religion? As well 
might we say the Jews had no religion because the Chris- 
tian has a better. Whilst the Jews looked through a 
glass darkly, the Christian sees face to face. The Jew 
came to God by the agency of the priesthood, with all 
its forms and ceremonies, its sacrifices and burnt-offerings; 
the Christian by a simple act of faith, guided by the 



84 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

Spirit of truth, goes straigh tto the throne of heaven and 
chiims its King as his father, and its Prince — the only- 
begotten Son of the Father — as his elder brother. I am 
fully persuaded that the spirit of Leonidas and his de- 
voted little band, who offered their own lives as a sacri- 
fice upon the altar of their country, was the same spirit 
which led the apostles and prophets and martyrs to die 
for brighter and fuller manifestations of Heaven's truth. 

The difference between true religion and false religion 
— such as hypocrisy, pharisaism, fanaticism — is, that true 
religion leads a man to offer himself as a sacrifice for the 
good of his fellow-men, and false religion leads him to 
offer other men as sacrifices for his own sins. Jesus 
Christ offered himself as a sacrifice for the sins of his 
enemies; but priestcraft, lx)th the pharisaism of the Jews 
and popery and protestantism of later times, have been 
in the habit of offering their enemies as sacrifices for their 
sins. If anybody will take the pains to read the deliver- 
ances of the general assemblies, synods, and conferences 
of the Protestant churclies of this country since the war, 
be will be astonished at their rancorous and bitter hatred. 
They are full of murders and revenge, — full ot malevo- 
lence, hatred, and persecution. This spirit is not the 
spirit of Christ, whose religion they profess, but the 
spirit of the devil, whose children and servants they are. 
Go among these canting hypocrites, and watch their 
conduct in society, and you will not be astonished any 
longer. You will see that these priests and their prose- 
lytes are like the Pharisees of old, whited sepulchres, — 
pretty on the outside but within full of iniquity and ex- 
tortion. 

How many of these preachers are there who will not 
sell you an indulgence, to carry on any kind of di.shonest 
business you may wish to engage in ? You may make 
money by any dishonest means you choose, so that you 
keep out of the clutches of the law; and the laws nowa- 
days are made to protect thieves and robbers who are 
successful. U you pay a good per centage of your dishon- 
est gains to your priest, he will give you all the privi- 
leges of the church, with assurance of continued pros- 
perity in this world and eternal happiness in the world 



THE SECOND WITNESS. 85 

to come. Where do riches come from? Are not the 
millions which fill the cofl'ers of the rich made up of the 
pennies which have been taken unjustly from the daily 
earnings of the poor ? One of these rich men may have 
a thousand laborers working for him, and by taking ten 
cents a day from the labor of each one, it makes a hun- 
dred dollars. In this way he goes on robbing his fellow- 
men until his stealings amount to millions, and then, to 
get the praise of men (and this is always the religion of 
Pharisaism), he makes some magnificent donation to the 
church; perhaps it is to build a splendid temple of wor- 
ship, where the rich may meet on Sunday and be enter- 
tained with fine music and fine sermons, cunningly de- 
vised words of human wisdom. 

To the poor, friendless children of toil Sunday is a 
beautiful day: it is a day of rest; it is the shadow of a 
great rock in a weary land. The sabbath-da\^ is to the 
laborer what a spring is to a traveler through a" hot, dry 
couatry — a medicine both healing and strengthening. It 
gives him new energy and hope; it sends him on his 
way rejoicing; it is what Shakspeare calls sleep — "sore 
labor's bath." Biit have you never observed how un- 
welcome this day is to the rich ? how tedious and 
solemn? how anxious they are to get rid of it? It is 
not a day for sweet contemplation for them. They 
cannot bear to look at their doings for the past week in 
the light of its pure truth. They cannot honestly and 
conscientiously go to God and thank him for all their 
prosperity and happiness. They, it would seem, ought 
to be grateful, .or they have the richest abundance. 
They live in palaces; they dress in purple and fine 
linen ; their daily fare is as sumptuous as the feast of a 
king. Why do not their hearts run over in fullness of 
gratitude for all these good things? Ah, when they re- 
member that all this excess is made up by taking from 
others what was necessary for their comfort, they do not 
want to go to that God who weighs everything in the 
even balance of justice. If they would go to God him- 
self, he might say unto them, "Go and sell what thou 
hast, and give to the poor." This would make them 
sorrowful, for they have threat possessions, and their 

^8 



86 Tllf: GREAT TUIAL. 

hearts are fixed on tlieni. No, no. They will go to the 
priests, and they will fix the matter up to suit They 
will make a religion for the occasion. The priest, for 
one thousand or five thousand dollars a year, will give 
them some musty theology, some fauaticalism, or some 
sickly profession of philanthropy, and this, they are per- 
suaded, will do for a ticket to get into the church, and 
into heaven after they die. 

Sometimes these people quiet their consciences by 
olfering to some other benevolent purpose a portion of 
their ill-gotten gains. They offer this as a sacrifice to 
charity: for instance; they will give a few hundred 
thousands out of their millions to build a college or theo- 
logical seminary. Is this charity, to build a college or 
fine library for the benefit of the few? The many 
cannot have access to these places, and if they had they 
would not have the time or the means to use them ; and 
these few, by means of the tricks of learned philosophy 
which are taught at colleges, are enabled to practice 
those political juggleries by which the masses of man- 
kind are made their dupes and slaves. Is it charity to 
build theological seminaries where piyests are educated 
in the learned sophistries called theology, and skilled in 
the use of those cunningly-devised words of human 
wisdom by which they are enabled to enslave the souls 
of men, and to build up, on the ruins of truth and virtue, 
great ecclesiastical despotisms? Is it charity for one 
man to rob a hundred of the fruits of their labor, and 
then contribute a portion of the theft to the education of 
a half-dozen priests in the learned sophistries and super- 
stitious juggleries by which popery has kept the human 
soul in ignoble bondage for hundreds of years? And 
since the Protestant priesthood has become more bare-^ 
faced in its pious frauds than popery even, why would it 
be charity to educate men in the tricks which it uses to 
enslave the souls of men ? 

\Vould this thing be charity anyhow, if even these 
donations were made to worthy purposes ? After these 
commercial and financial thieves have robbed their fellow- 
men of millions, — after they have accumulated such a 
vast mass of plunder that they can no longer hide it con- 



THK SECOND WITNESS. 8T 

veniently, — is it charity to give back a small portion of 
this overrunning and wasting part to those from whom 
it was all unjustly taken? 

This is the religion which the priesthood of this coun- 
try teach the people. Let any man look around him, not 
afar off, but in his own immediate neighborhood, and see 
if these things are not so; look right at home, and not 
abroad. You need not go off to the north or south or 
east or west; you need not go to the Greeleys and Phil- 
lipses and Beechers and Cheevers, who have got rich 
by teaching this false religion ; who have cheated and 
humbugged their fellow-men until they have made for- 
tunes, and then come out openly and boldly in favor of 
mammon for a god of the people and an upstart bond- 
autocracy for their masters. 

Look right at home: who are the members of your 
churches, — the leading and influential members? Who 
are the men who, by their connection with the church, 
control the morals of the society in which you live ? Are 
they not the business men of the world, who make money 
and get rich ? Are they not the men who hire laborers 
for less wages than they are able to work for, without 
sacrificing their own comfort or that of their family ? In 
their business transactions with their hirelings, do they 
not take advantage of their superior intelligence and 
knowledge of trade to cheat them out of their too small 
wages, which they have agreed to pay them ? Does not 
this religion consist in going to meeting on Sunday and 
carrying along a part of the money which they have 
made during the week by fraud or extortion, to propitiate 
their priests ? Does not the priest persuade them that a 
just God will be pleased wnth these unholy offerings? 
Don't these men, by precept, teach their children that the 
chief end of man is to glorify God ? Don't they teach 
their children, both by precept and by example (the only 
effective mode of teaching), that their true end is to 
learn how to do business, — that is, get rich, make money ? 
Are not the children of these men, and the world around 
them, horrified at their inconsistency when they compare 
their professions with the simple, plain, and unmistnkable 
teachings of the Bible? Are not their children and the 



38 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

worldly people around them driven to infidelity by con- 
founding the wicked hypocrisy of these men with Chris- 
tianity ? 

. Ay, look into your heart and see if there is not a tacit 
admission there that Christianity is nothing but a delu- 
sion and a cheat? You would not have the courage to 
make this admission out loud ; perhaps you will be afraid 
to make it to yourself, without any qualification ; but look 
well and see if this evil spirit has not crept into your 
soul through the window of doubt, or unbolted its door 
with the key of suspicion ? Who are the best men in your 
community ? (And by good men I mean such as swear 
to their own hurt, and change not.) Who are the neigh- 
bors in your own community? (And by a neighbor I 
mean the good Samaritan, who picked up the man who 
had fallen among thieves and was wounded, and carried 
him to his home and dressed his wounds, and anointed 
them with oil.) If you should fall among thieves, and 
be wounded, whom would you have to pass that way, — 
the prominent and influential men of the church, or the 
men of the world who live in your midst? If you should 
get into trouble and need, not good advice, but substantial 
aid, whom would you go to, — to members of the church or 
to men of the world ? Who are the generous, liberal, kind- 
hearted men in your community? Who are the greedy, 
avaricious, and unfeeling ? Who are the men who worship 
mammon as their god and bow daily at his shrine? 
Who are the men in your own community who would 
sacrifice their word, their honor, their affections, their 
friendship, ay their very soul, for money ? Are they not 
the prominent and influential members of the church? Are 
they not men who blaspheme God by a hypocritical profes- 
sion of his holy religion, and insult the common sense of 
njankind by the criminal inconsistency of their conduct ? 
By their fruits ye shall know them : do men gather 
figs of thistles, or grapes of thorns? This is the true 
and only true rule to measure men and their institutions 
by ; this is the rule given by the great Master himself. 
Lord Bacon persuaded men to apply this rule to the 
physical world, and what a wonderful revolution did it 
work there ! It utilized steam and electricity, and in- 



THE SECGXD WITXESS 89 

vented all those wonderful implements which have done 
so much to improve agriculture and the mechanic arts. 
If men would apply this same rule to the moral world, 
it would work out for them results as beautiful and as 
good as it did in the material world. 

Let us reject all of those systems and creeds of religion 
and politics which profess one thing and do another. 
Let us reject all of those religious systems and creeds 
whicl\ promise righteousness and holiness, but produce 
wickedness and filth; which promise judgment and jus- 
tice, but produce error and misery ; which promise love, 
but produce hate; which promise peace, but produce dis- 
cord ; which promise nothing but good, and produce 
nothing but evil. Let us reject too those political sys- 
tems which promised peace and prosperity, but produced 
calamity and war; which promised union, but gave dis- 
union and strife; which promised freedom, but gave in- 
stead a consolidated despotism with its military satrapies ; 
which promised equality, and gave an upstart moneyed 
aristocracy, the meanest, lowest, and most unprincipled 
that ever robbed the labor of any people, — an aristocracy 
made up of commercial thieves, financial gamblers, lying, 
thieving politicians, a bigoted, persecuting priesthood, 
who are hired to cheat and deceive the masses of the 
people with false religions, whilst their taskmasters rob 
and plunder them. 

Read your Bibles, and see if these are not the same 
scribes and Pharisees, and lawyers and doctors, who 
were cheating and defrauding, and robbing and plunder- 
ing mankind when Christ came to earth. Christ said of 
the priestcraft of that age (and it was the same church 
which God had established among the Jews thousands 
of years before). Even publicans and harlots will go into 
heaven before you. And again, Not every one that says 
unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of 
heaven, but he that doeth the will of my father which is 
in heaven. Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, 
have we not prophesied in thy name, in thy name cast 
out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works ? 
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you ; 
depart from me, ye that work iniquity. 



90 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

It is a notorious fact that a large proportion of the 
people of this country, disgusted with the h3^pocrisy of 
the church, so called, have been, by confounding this 
impudent pharisaism with Christianity, driven into infi- 
delity. It is a notorious fact that men, when they come 
to have business transactions with a member of a church, 
have less confidence in him on that account, and watch 
him more narrowly than they would otherwise do. It 
is a notorious fact that the church, so called, has been 
taken possession of by those cold, calculating sharpers 
who are called the business men of the world, men who 
love money with all their mind, soul and strength, and 
their own gains as they love themselves; men who wor- 
ship mammon as their god, and on his altar ofl-er as sacri- 
fices truth, virtue, friendship, love : everything beautiful 
and good in the world is sacrificed to this prince of devils. 

Men know these truths, and feel them. To avoid their 
evil consequences, they are plunging into every mad 
project which infidelity can suggest. There are as many 
quacks making pills to cure these moral maladies, as there 
are making pills to cure the physical disorders of men. 
Mesmerism, spiritualism, mongrelism, divorce and child- 
murder, and every beastly lust which the unbridled pas- 
sions of men wake up, is accepted as a religion and wor- 
shiped as a god. In such miserable illusions as these 
does poor blind infidelity seek happiness. In their hurjy 
to escape these awful evils, the Protestant people of this 
country are, manv of them at least, going back to popery. 
How pitiable are the devices which man resorts to, when 
once he has lost his faith in God. How unhesitatingly 
does he violate the plainest laws of reason and connnon 
sense. Christians, who have seen the wonderful fruits 
of Christianity, in the peace, prosperity and happiness of 
their own country, go back to popery, the very mother 
of modern superstition, with all its ignorance and degra- 
dation ; go back to popery, where some priest, ignorant, 
licentious, and vile, in the name of St. Peter exalts hin»- 
self above God, and all that is called God ; who, even 
when committing follies and excesses shocking to com- 
mon sense and even to decency, sets himself up as an 
infallible teacher and guide for his people. 



THE SECOND WITNESS. 91 

Take a glance at tlie world, ar.J sec what popery has 
done for it in the last two or three centuries. At the 
beginning- of the sixteenth century popery had reduced 
mankind, soul and body, to a degree of ignorance and 
degradation which could not be any longer borne. The 
souls of men were abject slaves to priestcraft, and their 
bodies to kingcraft. By those institutions of deception, 
and fraud, and crime, were the masses of mankind so com- 
pletely robbed and plundered that they had to rise up in 
self-defense and throw off their power. Martin Luther, 
an obscure and unknown monk, led the way. He an- 
nounced the Bible to be the only sj^stem of religion which 
had the sanction of heaven ; he declared that the Bible 
was the word of God, that is, a message right straight 
from heaven to man ; that man needed no priest to offi- 
ciate for him in religious matters ; that we have a High- 
priest to whom everj^ man, woman and child could go 
and have his sins forgiven. While Luther stuck to these 
simple, plain, and unmistakable truths of Christianity, he 
w^as irresistible ; popery fell before him everywhere. 
These simple notions of truth were omnipotent, nothing 
could stand in their way; they took possession of Eng- 
land, Scotland, Holland, Prussia, and seized strongholds 
in most of the other European states. 

How natural is it for man to become vain and conceited ! 
Luther and his helpers in the good work soon persuaded 
themselves that they had accomplished this wonderful 
revolution ; and, to gratify their pride and their vanity, 
they sat down to build up systems of their own. As 
soon as they aljandoned that simple faith which accepted 
the word of God as the truth and the only truth, as soon 
as they began to build up systems and theologies of their 
own, in a word, as soon as they forsook faith for reason 
and philosophy, the progress of their triumph ceased. 
Whilst they refused to fight their enemies with any other 
weapon than the Bible they were victorious in every fight. 
But as soon as they exchanged that for reason and philoso- 
phy, popery got the advantage, and the tide of victory was 
turned. For hundreds of years popery had been drilled 
in the use of these weapons ; her priests were deeply 
learned in all the cunningly devised words of human wis- 



92 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

dom. Whilst the Reformers used the smooth pebbles of 
the brook they could easily strike down the Goliaths of 
popery ; but when they armed themselves with the sword 
and helmet of their enemies, they fell directly before the 
powerful blows of the Philistine giants. 

Bur, fortunately for the world, whilst the priests (Cath- 
olic and Protestant) were disputing about their theologj, 
the people were reading their Bibles. Hence it was that 
Christianity, although it soon died in the churches- so 
called (both Catholic and Protestant), still lived among 
the people, because the people had in their hands the 
source of all wisdom and knowledge and truth. But in 
some of the countries of Europe the Bible had just entered, 
when the Reformation began to be interrupted in its 
progress by the folly of its professed friends. Take Spain 
for instance, at that time one of the most powerful of the 
European states. As soon as the Reformation reached 
Spain, it was seized and dragged into the Inquisition : 
and then, b}^ means of every species of torture which a 
brutal and despotic priesthood could suggest, it was put 
to death. Spain permitted that ignorant and despotic 
superstition, popery, to put out the tires which truth was 
kindling in her borders : and dearly has she paid for it. 
For the richness of its soil, and the salubrity of its cli- 
mate, Spain is one of the most desirable countries in the 
world; her people at the beginning of the sixteenth cen- 
tury were among the first people of Europe for all those 
powers and accomplishments which elevate and adorn 
human nature; in arts, and arms, and literature, and phi- 
losophy, the Castilian had no superior in the world. But 
in an evil hour they preferred darkness to light, the ignor- 
ance and tyranny of popish priestcraft to the knowledge 
and freedom and happiness of the Bible truth. They pre- 
ferred the slavery of the pope to the liberty of Jesus 
Christ. For this sin God Almighty has cursed her with 
the blight of decay. For two hundred and fifty years 
Spain has been going backward ; although she has w^ith 
in herself all the elements of power and prosperity, her 
ignorance and weakness have made her a proverb among 
the nations, and an object of pity or contempt to all. 

Look too at the colonies which Spain has planted in 



THE SECOND WITNESS. 93 

the New World — her Mexico, and South American states. 
So weak and ignorant are they all, that a government can 
hardly last among them more than a twelvemonth. They 
have gone through revolution after revolution, and always 
come out worse than they went in. The reason is obvi- 
-ous. A light has come into the world, even the word of 
God, to light every man that cometh into the world. 
This light is wisdom, and virtue, and truth. Those who 
accept this light will be free and prosperous and happy, 
but those who reject it will be poor and blind and naked 
and miserable. This is true not only of individuals, but 
of nations also. 

Look at Italy, that land of sunshine and flowers ; Italy, 
with its proud city of Rome, the mighty empire of 
the Caesars ; Italy, whose martial glorv was once the 
wonder of the world, whose almost perfect models of the 
fine arts, of poetry, of painting, and of sculpture, surviv- 
ing the wreck of a thousand years, live freshly to-day iu 
the admiration of mankind. This rich and beautiful land, 
the head-quarters of the pa})acy, the very seat of that vile 
priestly despotisn) which curses the world, is the picture. 
of weakness and decay, the very abode of ignorance, vice 
and crime. This is the condition of every country in the 
world where popery has had undisputed sway. 

Whilst these things are true, living, indisputable facts, it 
is equally true that poor barren countries, where the Bible 
has been accepted as the religion of the people, have made 
the most extraordinary progress in knowledge and wis- 
dom and virtue. These things the Bible has accomplished 
for many of the nations of Europe and this country; 
notwithstanding the fact that all of those people have 
been cursed with a hireling priestcraft, whose whole time 
is spent in perverting its simple truths, so that they may 
keep up their own power over the souls and bodies of men. 

In no country in the world has the Bible been so gen- 
erally received, as the religion of the people, as it has been 
in the English sp^akin-g domains ; and in no countries iu 
the world has man made such extraordinary progress iu 
all whiph belongs to his happiness ; our belief in the truth 
leads us to freedom and prosperity, to greatness and to 
glory. But when a peaple become great and prosperous, 



54 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

tbev become proud and haughty. So did we. And 
like that wicked old king-, we said, All these things have 
we done by the might of our power, and for our own 
glory. We began to trust in our own wisdom and 
strength, we began to confide in union, in States' rights, 
in this political faction, or that; we began to trust in 
priestcraft, with their almost innumerable doctrines and 
theologies. That vile infidel devil, abolitionism, with its 
vast train of evils, came along. 

There was an abolitionism, actuated by genuine human- 
ity and guided by principles of Christian truth, which 
advocated the liberation of the negro upon the ground 
of justice. In other words, it was opposed to slavery, 
because there were many abuses connected with that in- 
stitution clearly repugnant to the teachings of Christian- 
ity. With these people I have no quarrel. But I mean 
that abolitionism which hypocritically used tbe name of 
religion and humanity to get power in its own hands, 
and then turned out to be the vilest tyrant in the world. 
I mean that abolitionism which denounced slavery as a 
<hing too bad for the half civilized negro, and turned right 
around and made slaves of the noblest of the Caucasian 
race. I mean that abolitionism which teaches for religion 
mesmerism, spiritualism, mongrelism, child-murder, di- 
vorce, and ever}^ crime which its father the devil can sug- 
gest. I mean that abolitionism which by lies and trick- 
ery got possession of this government, and converted it 
at once into a military despotism; which/by a gigantic 
system of public robbery and plunder, made the expenses 
of our government fifteen hundred millions of dollars for 
three years, whereas for seventy years before the war the 
expenses all put together had not amounted to that sum. 

All the evils which afflict this country can be distinctly 
traced to infidelity; and this infidelity has been taught 
the people by a hireling priesthood. When priestcraft 
succeeds in perverting the morals of the people, then 
everything else becomes poisoned. As a people's relig- 
ion is, so will be their social and political institutions. If 
their religion is the pure Bible Christianity, their institu- 
tions will be wise and virtuous, and they themselves will 
be free and prosperous and hnppy. But "the wicked 



THE SLCOAD WITNESS. 95 

shall be turned into bell, and all the nations that forget 
God." 

How does it happen then that men called infidels have 
been the advocates of freedom and humanity, when peo- 
ple called Christians were the friends of proscription and 
persecution ? How does it happen that Voltaire and 
Tom Paine and Thomas Jefferson should be the advo- 
cates of civil and religious liberty, whilst the priestcraft 
of their day, professing the love and charity and faith of 
Christianity, were nevertheless the advocates of tyranny 
and persecution ? It happens in this way : these church- 
men are not Christians, but scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
crites. They are the same people against whom the Au- 
thor of Christianity denounced such terrible woes, when 
he was on earth ; the same people of whom he said, — ■ 
Even publicans and harlots will go into the kingdom of 
heaven before you. And I will say unto them on my 
right, I was an hungered, and you gave me meat. I was 
thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was sick and in prison, 
and you ministered unto me. Then they will answer and 
say, Lord, when saw we thee hungry and thirsty, and 
gave thee meat and drink, and when saw we thee sick 
and in prison, and ndnistered unto thee ? Then will I 
answer unto them : inasmuch as you did it unto the least 
of these little ones, you did it unto me. 

How strange is i-t that many in that great day will 
stand on the right hand for deeds of charity and kindness 
and benevolence which they know not of! Methinksthey 
will be there who obey this commandment: " When thou 
doest thine alms, let not thy left hand know what thy 
right hand doeth." " Not every one that saith unto me, 
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but 
be that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven. 
And many will say unto me in that day. Lord, have we 
not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out 
devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works ? 
And then will 1 confess unto them, I never knew you; 
depart from me, ye workers of iniquity." These I take it 
will be a hireling priestcraft, who make religion consist 
in forms and ceremonies, ordinances and observances; 
who make religion consist in paying tithes of mint, cum- 



96 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

min and anise, to bolster up that vile ecclesiastical des- 
potism which lords it over God's heritage. These I take 
it will be those bigoted and self-righteous churchmen who 
in their conceit thank God that they are not as other men, 
who are always gouging their fingers into the eyes of 
other people, to pull out the mote they see there, whilst 
they neglect a beam in their own eyes. These I take it 
will be those canting Pharisees, hypocritical professors of 
religion, who spend their lives robbing their fellow-men 
by the legalized tricks and frauds of their business pur- 
suits, until they are w^orth millions, and then with a great 
sounding of trumpets give back a few hundred thousands, 
a mere fraction of their stealings, to those they have 
robbed. 

-Are there not daily exhibitions of this truth in this 
boasted land of liberty and equality, of freedom and hu- 
manity ? Hundreds of boys and girls, yet of tender age, 
are huddled together in those pens of iniquity and vice 
called factories, with a miserable smattering of the rudi- 
ments of education picked up in those filthy herd-pens 
called free schools, to start with. Having nobod}'' to as- 
sociate with but themselves, and being tiiemselves ignor- 
ant, they are effectually shut out from all further oppor- 
tunity to get knowledge. Although it is in a land of 
equality, they are not permitted to associate with their 
njasters, and if they were they would learn nothing from 
them. For they, the best of them, are educated only in 
the arts of gain, skilled only in those business tricks, 
sharp practices, by which men overreach their fellow-men 
and get without just compensation their property or their 
labor. Their literature for the future consists of little 
speckled-back Sunday-school books, full not of truthful 
pictures of human life, but of distorted caricatures. The 
characters are all little angels, or little devils. The chil- 
dren for the most part, like their parents, persuade them- 
selves that they are the little angels ; and, wrapped in 
the mantle of conceit, the}^ are forever afterward invul- 
nerable to the most pointed arrows of truth. They grad- 
uate in reading yellow-back novels or cheap newspaper* 
and periodicals, filled with sentimental stories written to 
excite the animal passions, to fill the mind with lewd 



THE SECOND WITXLSS. 97 

thoughts, and to debauch the body with the pollutions of 
wlioredom. 

What a preparation for fornication, adultery, divorce, 
child-murder, and other crimes and follies, which are to- 
day so common in this land of freedom and humanity, 
the home of our modern self-righteous Pharisees! 

There too are they shut in from nature, with its green 
fields, its pretty flowers, its shady trees, its singing birds, 
its bright and sparkling waters, which flow like streams 
of mercy from the fountain of love to lead the soul back 
to its source, the bosom of its God. There too are they 
worked hard at uuremuuerative wages, until disease or 
age unfits them to work any longer; and then they are 
turned out, like an old horse who has a hard master, to 
shift for themselves upon the poor, barren, picked com- 
mons of public charity. Their masters, in the mean time, 
by taking a little off of the wages of each slave, are mil- 
lionaires. They give a fraction of their big fortunes, made 
up of their stealings from labor (and this they give be- 
cause they have more than they can conveniently hide 
away), to build some fine church or other charitable insti- 
tution, so called. Yes, fine churches, with their fine or- 
gans, and fine choirs, and fine sermons — all gotten up to 
entertain and amuse the rich phylacterized Pharisees who 
worship there ! And all the newspapers of the country, 
and more especially the religions ones, so called, adver- 
tise these benefactors of mankind, and praise their charity 
until the minds of honest people are disgusted. 

Modern religion in this thing, as in everything else, 
does the very opposite of what it is commanded to do. 
It goes right in the teeth of the plain, simple commands 
of Christ whom it claims as its author. "Take heed that 
ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them ; 
otherwise ye have no reward of your father which is in 
heaven." If these body-destroying and soul-blighting 
institutions existed anywhere else but in the land of 
liberty and equality, freedom and humanity, how w^ould 
these pious reformers, the Greeleys, the Phillipses, 
Beechers, and the Cheevers, labor to destroy them! 
Into what a tempest of anger would they work them- 
selves against these institutions! If those children who 
E • 9 



98 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

from their childhood to old age are wronged and robbed 
were only black children, instead of "poor white trash," 
how would the kind hearts of these benevolent men boil 
over in sympathy for them ! And how would their holy 
anger be worked up against their cruel taskmasters I But 
philosopher Greeley bears the wrongs of the " poor white 
trash" with wonderful equanimity ; he coolly advises 
them, when they make a strike to raise their wages above 
the starving point, not to get out of temper, not to get 
mad. If indeed they can starve long enough to force 
their rich taskmasters into a compliance with their most 
reasonable request, it will be well and good ; if not, why 
let them bear their wrongs patiently I 

The Creator thought he was conferring a mark of honor 
and distinction on us, to whom he had given higher intel- 
lectual gifts, and finer sensibilities, in giving us a pretty 
white skin ; but man has found out better. For these 
marks of Heaven's favor do not only exclude us from all 
claim upon man's charity and benevolence, but from all 
right to that even-handed justice which a righteous God 
has enjoined upon man to do to his fellow-man. Ah I I 
can understand this thing well enough. Those black 
slaves were the slaves of Jeff. Davis and General Lee, 
slaves of the Virginians and Carolinians; these white 
slaves are the slaves of Greeley and Phillips, the slaves of 
New Yorkers and Yankees. A certain farmer said to a 
lawyer, "My bull has gored your ox; what will be done 
about the matter ?" " Why," answered the lawyer, "it 
is plain enough, you must pay the damages." " I mis- 
take," replied the farmer; " it was your bull that gored 
my ox." " Well, well," said the lawyer, " we will see 
about it." 

Certain slaves went to the Greeleys, the Phillipses, 
and Beechers, and said, " Look how Jeff. Davis and Lee 
hold the black men in slavery ; they make them work for 
their victuals and clothes ; they determine too the num- 
ber of hours they must 'work each day, and the quantity 
and quality of victuals and clothes they must receive." 
The friends of humanity answered, " They are cruel, 
brutal and barbarous ; you must stir up your anger against 
them ; you must make war on them and destroy their in- 



THE SECOND WITNESS. 9ft 

stitutions and liberate their slaves." Their slaves accom- 
plish this good work, and then comeback to these friends 
of freedom and humanity, and say, " We too are slaves, 
the slaves of social and political institutions, the slaves of 
commercial thieves and financial gamblers, the slaves of 
great moneyed monopolies, the slaves of a hireling priest- 
craft, the slaves of political factions, the slaves of intolera- 
ble burdens of debt and taxation, the slaves of a mean, low- 
born, heartless bondautocracy, who have robbed us until 
we are poor, and then disgraced us by making money the 
measure of merit and the mark of respectability ; our task- 
masters determine how many hours a day we must work, 
and how much victuals and what kind of clothes we must 
eat and wear; and so short were our rations, that during 
the Mast long, hard winter' many of us were seized by 
abundant and importunate beggary, and dragged around, 
the pitiable objects of public and private charity. What 
must we do, Messrs. Greeley, Phillips, Beecber, Cheever, 
etc., what must we do ?" And these amiable gentlemen 
answer, "Don't get out of humor. Discuss the matter 
good-temperedly with your taskmasters ; and if you can 
reason them into a better treatment of yourselves, well 
and good. Or if you strike for higher wages, and can 
starve long enough to force your masters to respect your 
rights, well and good. If not, w^hy be good servants and 
endure your wrongs patiently." 

** Why, Messrs. Greeley, Phillips, Beecher, Cheever, 
etc., this is not the advice you gave these people when you 
were discussing negro slavery." " Ah ! my dear sir, you 
see ' circumstances alter cases ;' these poor white trash 
are our slaves ; we don't tell them so, but it is so never- 
theless. If they would get mad and destroy slavery here, 
what would we do for slaves ? what would w^e do for a 
mud-sill for our aristocracy ? how could we be rich ? how 
could our wives and daughters live in great style ? how 
could they live in the first circles ? No, no, that would 
never do; we would all be brought down to a level with 
the ' poor white trash.' Ay, our wives and daughters 
would have to associate with these vulgar people, and 
that would be a great scandal for people who belong to 
the first circles." 



100 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

Since these are the religions people of this age, — the 
churchmen, the scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, — is 
it any wonder that honest and conscientious men should 
be infidels ? Men, without looking into the matter as they 
should, confound the church, so called, with Christianity; 
and because the church is bigoted, superstitious and 
intolerant, they reject Christianity. 

When Voltaire looked around him and saw the church 
(both Catholic and Protestant) governed by the most 
ruthless spirit of persecution, he wisely came to the con- 
clusion that those ecclesiastical hierarchies were the 
enemy of both man and God. Priestcraft had joined with 
kingcraft to degrade and enslave the whole human race. 
The kings and priests and aristocracies of Europe, who 
constitute less than a hundredth part of the people, arro- 
gated to themselves power over all things human and 
divine. By divine right kings ruled the bodies of men, 
and priests their souls; and the millions of their fellow- 
beings whom they held in abject slavery they looked upon 
as creatures made for their use, just as cattle and horses 
were. If man worked hard and had clothes enough to 
keep him from freezing, and bread enough to keep him 
from starving, he got these things not as the just reward 
of his labor, but by the grace and favor of his king. If 
man had the comforts and hopes of religion, he had those 
things not because he believed in God, and kept his laws, 
but because he believed in the commandments of the 
priests and observed the ordinances of the church. Loy- 
alty was the duty of the people, no matter what wicked 
and profligate tyrant robbed them of their liberty, their 
lives and their property. Obedience to the church, no 
matter how wicked and blasphemous its practices were, 
was the duty of the people. No matter what drunken 
priest filled the chair of St. Peter, his word must be 
obeved, even thoui^h it was in blasphemv of the word of 
God. 

Voltaire turned from popery,* which he saw doing the 
w^orks of the devil and not the works of God, to protest- 



* I speak of popery and protestantism as political powers, and not as 
social and religious institutions. 



THE SECOND WnWES^!. 101 

ant'srn. But protestantism, so called, was tlien nothing 
more than popery in miniature. Episcopacy, presbyte- 
rianism, and a hundred other cieeds and sects, were but 
bastard children, begotten by popery in her whoredoms 
with the political power. With an unblushing impudence 
these illegitimate children arrogated to themselves, each 
and all of them, the power of St. Peter. English epis- 
copacy as much like popery as it is possible for a daugh- 
ter to be like a mother in form and features ; its very 
founder a lecherous old tyrant, who, to gratify his animal 
passions, had cast away the pure and virtuous wnfe of 
his early love; it was persecuting and proscribing like 
popery everybody who did not conform to its ceremonies 
and ordinances. Yoltaire, looking merely at the surface 
of things, came to the conclusion that these churches, so 
called, were the enemies of God and man, because they 
were evidently doing works meet for the devil. And thus 
far Yoltaire was right ; but when Yoltaire said Christian- 
ity was false because these churches which claimed to 
be Christians were false he was wn'ong. 

Yoltaire rejected Christianity ; he and his brother phi- 
losophers taught that all men were '* created equal," and 
that all men are naturally good. The French people ac- 
cepted the teaching of these men as the truth, and, taking 
their philosophy as the compass to guide their way, they 
launched their ship of state, with reason at the helm, 
upon the wild ocean of human speculation. Never did 
any ship of state have so perilous a voyage. Driven by 
every wind of passion and tossed by every wave of power, 
the angry storm of justice dashed it about like a plaything 
for a little while, and then drove it wildly and madly 
upon the rocky shores of ruin. How pitiable was it to 
see these infidel philanthropists drifting hopelessly upon 
the broken fragments of this wreck, and begging their old 
taskmasters, kingcraft and priestcraft, to save them from 
utter death ! 

When Thomas Jefferson saw episcopacy in Virginia 
prohibiting Baptists and others from preaching, when he 
saw Puritanism in New England hanging witches and 
burning heretics and exiling better people than they were 
themselves, he knew these things were the works of the 

9* 



102 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

devil. These things were done by the churches, which 
flaimed to be Christ's ministers in the world and the 
representatives of his religion. Without examiuing the 
matter he rashly came to the conclusion that Christian- 
ity and priestcraft were the same thing, and rejected 
both. But Thomas Jefferson had a nation of Christians 
to deal with, and not a nation of infidels, as Yoltaire 
had; yes, a nation of people who had the Bible, and on 
ihat account had higher and better notions of Christian- 
ity than their churches had. A light had come into the 
world, to light every man that cometh into the world. 

Thomas Jefferson* saw that light, and, without know- 
ing where it came from, used it to find out the true no- 
tions of social and political reform. . 

Jesus Christ had taught, and nobody else had, that all 
men are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
piness ; in other words, that man is the child of God 
and the brother of his fellow-man. Jefferson taught re- 
'igious toleration and other liberal Christian laws; and 
is far as he taught these liberal and beneficent principles 
of Christian charity and benevolence, and attempted to 
incorporate them into the social and political institutions 
of his country, the people went with him, although their 
churches were not with him, for the people were ahead 
of the churches. The people read the Bible, and believed 
in it ; the churches read theologies of Luther, Calvin, 
Cranmer and Wesley. The people followed the com- 
mandments of God ; and the churches, as they have 
always done, followed the commandments of men. 

Jefferson was a shrewd politician, and never offended 
ihe will of the people. He was perhaps one of the most 
inconsistent politicians of his day ; perhaps he changed 
oftener than any other. Instead of moulding public sen- 
timent, he was moulded by it. Exceedingly thin-skinned, 
he was a first-rate political barometer ; being extremely 
sensitive to popular impressions, he was an admirable 
index of the political sentiments of his country. He vveut 
so far in his theories as to incorporate in the Declaration 



* Mr. Jefferson rejected the forms of Christianity, but followed its 
spirit. 



THE SECOND WITNESS. 103 

of lodependence an infidel falsehood borrowed from the 
French school of philosophy ;* but he never attempted 
to carry it into practice. If he had, the Christian people 
of America would have rejected him and his infidel phi- 
losophy. Is it not remarkable thffit one infidel sentiment 
incorporated into our political institutions, "that all men 
are created equal," should have proved the bane of those 
institutions? How dangerous is a little error mixed with 
a g-reat deal of truth ! 

This sentiment, that all men are created equal, was 
taken up by a sect of infidel philosophers, headed by 
Theodore Parker and Wendell Phillips. At first they 
tried to defend it as a doctrine of the Bible ; but failing" 
in that, they blasphemously trampled the Bible under 
their feet. Thejj tried to show that the Constitution of 
the United States recognized it ; but when they failed in 
that they tore up that great charter of American liberty 
in the presence of the people. As they did not have to 
deal with a Christian people, as Jefferson did, but with a 
people whom priestcraft had lulled to sleep, with the 
opiates of infidelity, they succeeded in making their wild 
schemes acceptable. The result so far everybody knows: 
a civil war with all its ruin and desolation, the ancient 
democracy of America destroyed, and a military despot- 
ism established on its ruins ; a public debt, and a system 
of taxation as oppressive as that of Russia, forced on the 
people ; an upstart aristocracy, insatiable in their greed 
of plunder, rules the government State and national; 
and the millions of white laborers, the mud-sill of this 
despicable aristocracy, work like the serfs of Europe for 
their victuals and clothes, and get but short rations at 
that. That whole school of infidel philosophers, the 
Greeleys and Phillipses and Beechers, are to-day the de- 
cided friends of that political usurpation and bondauto- 
cratic tyranny which are robbing the labor of this country, 
and reducing the working people to the condition of Eu- 
ropean serfs. With an unblushing impudence, these men, 
in the name of freedom and equality, are trying to build 



* Mr. Jefferson's notions of equality are explained by the words "life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 



lOi THE GREAT TRIAL. 

up a great moneyed aristocracy in this country, — a power 
which has destroyed the freedom of every other people 
in the world, and made the working millions slaves of 
kings and aristocracies. 

Let the people know •from these things that they can't 
trust infidelity, whatever professions it may make. In the 
first place, it is the child of the devil, and like its father 
it is a liar always. But even if it were possible for it to 
tell the truth, it is the blind guide which leads the blind, 
and they both fall into the ditch. For a little while the 
great democracy of America was free. The down-trodden 
people of other lands and other countries looked to them 
with hope ; the tyrants who were cursing the world with 
oppression looked with apprehension and dread upon the 
growing prowess of liberty. But political factions and 
religious creeds are doing for it what they have done for 
every other country in the world. Kings and priests 
get up quarrels about some foolish questions of politics 
or theology, divide the people, and plunge them into war; 
war makes vast debts and taxations and large standing 
armies, and these things make slaves of the masses. 
Lying political factions and a hireling priesthood have 
done the same thing in this country. The faction called 
the democracy has been in the service of the slaveocracy 
for years and years, and the infidel abolition faction has 
been in the service of the great moneyed power of the 
North. This faction bought up the priests and pulpits, 
and every Sunday was desecrated by sermons full of 
falsehood and malicious hate ; Beecher even carried his 
Sharp's rifle into the pulpit, so eager was he for war. 
He took good care, however, to keep out of the way, not 
only of bullets, but of all the privations and hardships 
which attended the army. 

These men indeed claim that they have destroyed negro 
slavery, and urge that in mitigation of their other offenses. 
Is this true ? Is the negro free ? The people of the 
United States who were not directly interested in slavery 
as owners of negroes saw it in two distinct aspects. As 
a social institution, which had existed in the States almost 
from their very birth, they were disposed to look upon it 
favorably. For many reasons they were unwilling to 



^im SECOND WITNESS. 105 

disturb it. In the first place, it would necessarily give a 
mighty shock to the wiiole indastrial interest of the 
country, even if it could have been abolished without 
war. In the second place, the people of the North, as 
well as the people of the South, knew that the negro was 
unequal to the white man in every particular. 1 say 
they all knew this except a little faction of infidels, called 
abolitionists, made up of crazy men and weak-minded 
women. This inequality, which the people knew from 
instinct and common sense, made it impossible for the two 
races ever to live together as a homogeneous people. 
God had separated them by insuperable laws; and no 
human power, even though it be aided by the devil, can 
ever unite them. By no political alchemy can a negro 
ever be converted into a white man. The most that can 
ever be done in this way, even thouirh Beecher should 
use his own daughters, and the daughters of the yard- 
stick and goose-quill nobility who worship at the church 
of the Puritans, as a bait to medicine the negro into a 
white man — I say even by this process, so shocking to 
the instincts of decent people, nothing more can be done 
than to produce a mongrel race of mules, fit only for servi- 
tude (high-bred as these mares may be, coming from 
the first circles so-called), and without the power of per- 
petuating its kind. 

Then, if they cannot live together as one people, they 
cannot live together at all, unless you recognize distinctly 
the right of the superior race to rule. Reasoning in this 
way, the common sense of the American people told them 
that it was better to tolerate slavery with all its evil 
practices, some of which were really shocking to just 
notions of humanity, than to set the negro free without 
knowing what to do with him. With all the fuss about 
mongrelism which has been made in this country, I do 
believe that among the abolitionists themselves not one 
in ten honestly and sincerely believe in equality. I am 
sure that not one in ten would permit a pretty daughter of 
his to marry a negro, or a sprightly son to marry a negro 
wench, although there might be no other objection in the 
world except that the party was a negro. The leaders who 
advocate these practices so repugnant to all high notions 

E* 



106 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

of virtue, the Greeleys, the Beechers, and Cheevers, do 
wilfully and deliberately falsify the truth for purposes of 
personal and political ao^grandizement. The followers of 
these blind guides, the miserable dupes of fanaticism, are 
laboring under a wretched delusion which nothing can 
dispel but a proposition to practice their doctrine in their 
own families ; this simple practical test would, I am sure, 
wake nine out of ten of these moral clairvoyants out of 
their dream of folly. 

But negro slavery assumed another character, which 
alarmed the American people, and excited that jealousy 
which has ever watched their liberties so closely. Slavery 
set itself up as a political power, claiming the right as 
such to rule one-half of the territories of the United 
States. As a social institution among the States, the 
people said, let it be ; but as a national power claiming 
the right to rule the national government, an aristocratic 
and despotic institution, it excited at once the fear and 
hatred of the masses of the people. The object of the 
war, as far as the great masses of the American people 
were concerned, was to destroy slavery as a political in- 
stitution. As a political institution, a great power in the 
land, it did years ago take possession of that great 
political faction called the democracy, and used it to do 
its bidding. A free people cannot permit any power to 
rule them, no matter what it is. Hence the enmity to 
negro slavery, and the long and bloody war to destroy i*.-^ 

But is not the negro a power still in the hands of a 
political faction, and so in a more offensive sense than 
he ever was before ? Has not this political faction, the 
professed tool of that great money-power called the bond- 
ocracy, by force and fraud through their military satraps 
and carpet-bag agents,- organized the negroes of the South 
into a great political power to do their dirty work ? And 
what work do they propose to do? Why, they propose 
to change the ancient democracy of America into a great 
consolidated despotism, the ruling power of which will 
be a great money-power called the bondocracy. Because' 
slavery was a vast lever of power in the hands of a po- 
litical faction, in the service of a great aristocracy, to rule 
the country, the people destroA^ed it ; and does anybody 



THE SECOND WITNESS. lOY 

suppose the people, who sacrificed so many h'ves to prevent 
that thing-, are g-oing to permit the negro to be armed and 
organized in the service of the jacobins who are tliemselves 
by their own professions the tools of the great moneyed 
aristocracy of the North, called the bondautocracy ? 

I repeat that the enmity of the Northern people to 
slavery sprung from the fact that it was an organized 
political power, which used the Democratic party to build 
up and extend the aristocracy of the South. It was for 
this reason that the people made war on it, and destroyed 
it. And yet, with these facts staring them in the face, 
the jacobins have turned right around and organized the 
negro into a great political power to build up and perpet- 
uate a great moneyed aristocracy in the North, an aristo- 
cracy infinitely more offensive to the people than the 
other. For the slaveholders of the South were as a gen- 
eral thing men of some education and polish ; more than 
that, they were frank and candid, and in their dealings 
with their fellow-men kind hearted and generous to a 
fault. These popular traits in the character of the aris- 
tocrats went far towards reconciling the people to the 
aristocracy. But this new aristocracy, this cold-blooded, 
cold-hearted, labor-robbing bondautocracy, this yard-stick 
and goose-quill nobilit}', these commercial thieves and 
financial gamblers, these cotton-and-spoon-stealing gen- 
erals who never did any fighting, these quartermasters 
and commissaries, these government contractors and 
substitute-buyers, these merchant-princes and bankers 
who promised to pay the expenses of the war until 
the war was over, and then said they only lent this 
money to the government, and now want the laboring 
people w4io did the fighting to pay them back twice as 
much money as they lent and a big interest in gold be- 
sides, — I say this aristocracy has not one redeeming fea- 
ture in its character, not one element of character which 
is not repulsive to every democratic freeman in America. 

From these facts people may learn lessons of wisdom 
and profit: they may learn that they can't trust priest- 
craft, that they can't trust political factions ; that mam- 
mon, the money-god, which has for six thousand years 
made slaves of the masses of mankind, can alwavs hire 



m 



THE GRKAT TRIAL 



priestcraft and political factions to do his bidding. They 
will learn too that this money-god, this mammon, to whom 
they have given their hearts, instead of to that God who 
made them, and in whose hands their breath is, is cruel, 
unjust and tyrannical; that he robs the many, in order 
that the few may be rich ; that he makes slaves of the 
many, in order that the few may live in pomp and pride 
and splendor ; he teaches hate instead of love, war instead 
of peace ; instead of freedom, prosperity and happiness, 
he gives a people slavery, ruin and misery. Why then 
should the people worship this god ? Why had they not 
better worship the God of the Bible, that God who has 
promised them (and his promises will stand when the 
heavens and the earth shall pass away) a land flowing 
with milk and honey ? He promises them freedom and 
prosperity and happiness; yea, he promises to rain on 
them showers of blessings. Our fathers worshiped that 
God, and were ever any people so richly blessed ? Did 
ever any people enjoy so much freedom and prosperity? 
They read the word of God, and believed in that; they 
kept his laws and observed his statutes to do them. And 
oh. what a harvest of good did they reap! 

But we believe in priestcraft, and obey its command- 
ments, its theology. It has taught us to worship gods 
of gold and silver, and beastly lusts, and passions called 
isms, and hate and revenge, and war and tyranny. 
And what a harvest of woe have w^e reaped ! This 
mammon has established his empire over this country; 
his headquarters are in Wall street, New York. From 
that point he issues his decrees. The national govern- 
ment, the State government, in a word, every political and 
social organization in the whole country, is subject to his 
authority. This power commanded the Republican faction 
to nominate Grant, and the Democratic party to nomi- 
nate Seymour. To show how universal its power is, let 
me state this simple fact: the Governor of Tennessee 
asked for arms to arm the militia of that State. The 
legislature was about to pass the law, when a prohibitory 
command came from Wall street: Tennessee bonds are 
falling in the market, and if you pass that militia bill we 
will send them lower. That's enou<>:h ! the bill won't be 



TH?: SLCoyo rrirxfjss. 109 

passed. It does not help the matter to say that the 
Governor of Tennessee is a madman, a canting old priest, 
who for years and years has blasphemed heaven and in- 
sulted earth by preaching for Christianity abuse and slan- 
der of everything and everybody who was good. It 
does not If^lp the matter any to say that the Tennessee 
legislature is a foul gang of usurpers and thieves, put 
into power by that poor, weak, shallow mimic of a 
tyrant who to-day* disgraces the Presidential chair. It 
does not help the matter to say that in this case the 
power was exercised for good. To talk about a people 
being free, and a country being the land of liberty, when it 
has an aristocratic power, a great moneyed power, which 
controls at will the State and national legislatures, which 
makes and unmakes governors and presidents, is simply 
absurd. Such people may hurrah for freedom and equality 
until their throats are sore, and they will still be slaves. 

But whom will the people trust ? The political leaders 
of the Republican party sold the masses to Grant, as the 
tool of the bondocracy. Vallandigham, who has made 
fuss enough for a half-dozen patriots, tried to sell out his 
party to S. P. Chase, the most bitter, radical and uncom- 
promising enemy his party ever had. On account of his 
talents and his thorough proficiency in all the arts of po- 
litical villainy, no man in the whole country was capable 
of doing the Democratic party so much harm. The rest 
of the politicians, with Yoorhees at their head, another 
boisterous patriot, sold out to Seymour, the only promi- 
nent man in the party who was thoroughly identified 
with the bondautocracy. 

There is an instinct in the masses of the people which 
leads them to look in the right direction in times of great 
peril, even when they lack the patriotism and courage to 
follow this great law of truth. The masses of the Demo- 
cratic party, the laboring millions who swell its ranks, 
nineteen out of twenty of them, had turned their eyes to 
George H. Pendleton of Ohio. What attractive power 
was it which led the masses to him, for thousands and 
tens of thousands of working men in the Republican party 



* 1868. Andy Johnson. 
10 



110 IIIE GREAT TRIAL. 

were ready to support him? What was it that led the 
people to him ? Why, he has a heart, a soul ; he is honest 
and upright and noble ; to-day if it was in his power he 
would sacrifice everything he has in the world, — aye, his 
very life, — if by doing it the great democracy of America 
could be free as it once was, and his country'^prosperous 
and happy as in days of yore. But he was too good for 
the politicians, and much too good for the bondautocracy, 
whose tools the politicians are. A politician like Gov- 
ernor Seymour, drilled in all the arts of political chicanery, 
suits better than an honest, upright man, a man who has 
a heart to feel for the people, and a soul to rebel against 
their wrongs. But on this subject of bondocracy the 
people can't trust such men even as George H. Pendle- 
ton ; for whilst he is honest and upright in his personal 
character and private relations, and in political affairs, 
according to the highest standard of morality which gov- 
erns the country, his reasoning is incorrect and his con- 
clusions unworthy of himself. Indeed, the standard of 
right and wrong which governs this country, fixed by a 
hireling priestcraft, is sadly low. With a strange incon- 
sistency, and with a lack of that clear perception of truth 
without which no people can be free or happy, Mr. Pen- 
dleton argues that the people are in honor bound to pay 
the public debt. 

The Congress of the United States, dictated to by the 
aristocracy of the North, its great moneyed power, with- 
out any moral or legal right (according to Pendleton him- 
self) did make war on a part of the country. Had this 
Congress been acting as the agents of the people, and in 
their behalf, there would have been no war; but because 
it was the agent of the great moneyed power of the 
North, and was acting in its behalf, it did make the war 
for its interest and benefit. This moneyed tyrant enters 
into a conspiracy with the agents of the people, and buys 
these agents to make war on the people, to destroy their 
government, their liberties, and their happiness ; and then 
turns round and asks the people to pay the expenses of 
the crimes and follies which have wrought this ruin, be- 
cause the agents of the people were parties to this damn- 
ing conspiracy. The Congress had power to preserve. 



THE SECOND WITAESS. Ill 

and not destroy, the liberties and happiness of the people. 
The power thej used for this purpose was not a legiti- 
mate use of power, but a criminal abuse of it. And the 
financial ganiblers who entered into the conspiracy de- 
serve not only to lose the money they spent in carrying 
out their wicked deeds, but they deserve to go to the 
penitentiary besides. 

But suppose the war was just (and no war of invasion 
or subjugation was ever just), then are the people bound 
by all of its acts and consequences ? '* We are bound by 
all the acts of Congress, because, if we repudiate any of 
them, somebody will suffer by it." To make the matter 
plain, Congress by its reconstruction acts has put the 
power of the Southern States into the hands of the negro. 
The negroes, trusting in the plighted faith of the United 
States, as expressed by the public acts of its national 
legislature, have organized governments. By these gov- 
ernments they have disfranchised the white people of the 
South, and made these people their enemies. Now Mr. 
Pendleton says that it is perfectly honorable and upright, 
perfectly just, to repudiate this whole reconstruction pol- 
icy, and thereby violate the plighted faith of the govern- 
ment to three millions of persons. Will Mr. Pendleton 
say that these people are only negroes, half-civilized bar- 
barians, and that therefore we are not bound to keep our 
promises with them ? Would it be in accordance with 
high notions of honor for a powerful people to say, We 
are not bound to keep our promise with these people, be- 
cause they are weak and ignorant? 

The notions of morality which men seem to entertain 
are about these : that all obligations in which money is 
concerned are sacred and must be kept ; but obligations 
which affect only the lives and liberties of men may be 
violated with impunity. The object of the w^ar, with all 
of its consequences, may be repudiated, everything may 
be undone, except its promises to pay money ; these and 
these only are inviolable. This is but another strong 
proof of what I stated before, that mammon is the god 
whom this people worship. You may promise anything 
to anybody, and violate that promise ; but any promise 
to pay money, no matter if the promise has been extorted 



112 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

by force, you must keep it. The laboring millions were f 
promised freedom, happiness, and prosperity such as they 
had never seen before, if they would go into the war and 
fight it through. They did so ; and how have these prom- 
ises been kept? where is the freedom, the happiness, and 
prosperity ? But they are only men ; persons, and not 
property. It don't matter if you do break your promise 
with them. It don't matter if they do have to work 
harder and live harder. It don't matter if their wives 
and little ones — maybe the widows and children of sol- 
diers who fell in the war — do suffer. It don't matter if 
you did promise to them freedom and prosperity and hap- 
piness ; you need not keep that promise. Oh, no ; you 
may give them, instead, the intolerable burdens of debt 
and taxation, ay, the pinching of poverty and want. 
They are only men, women and children, — not money ; 
you need not keep faith with them. 

Beware, worshipers of mammon, beware ! Money may 
be a mighty lever of power, but the human soul when 
once waked up — who can measure its power? It is pa- 
tient and long-suffering and forbearing; but when its 
anger is once kindled, woe to them who have trifled with 
its confidence and betrayed its trust. Only the God who ' 
made it can restrain its power ; and he has never re- 
strained it from breaking to pieces idol gods, and visiting 
swift justice upon the evil deeds of their worshipers. 

I repeat it, the aristocratic institutions of this country 
brought on the late war. I will go further, and say that 
aristocratic institutions, in some form or other, have been 
the cause of all the wars which have ever been waged in 
the world. A small proportion of the people of a state 
get rich, they use their wealth by consolidating it to get 
power into their hands, and then they use the power to 
rob their own people until they have made the masses 
poor. When they have made the masses of their own 
people poor and dependent, they buy them up like horses 
and. use them to rob some other state or nation. The 
slave power in the Southern States took possession of all 
the State governments, and used them to keep up its power 
and extend its empire. As far as they could get possession 
of the national government, they used it for the same pur- 



TIIF SnC(>XD \]ITXi:SS. 113 

pose. In the meantime the commercial thieves and TRnan- 
cial gamblers of the North, and the owners of big distill- 
eries and big manufacturing establishments, had got pos- 
session of all the State governments up there, and had 
used them to establish their power over the masses of the 
people. 

To every man who is not the slave of fanaticism and 
prejudice, it is perfectly apparent that these mone3''ed mo- 
nopolists had and still have absolute control over not only 
every political body, but every social and religious organi- 
zation in that section. It was a struggle between these 
two great aristocracies to get possession of the national 
government, and u^e it to extend its power and authority, 
which led to the late terrible civil war. The irrepressible 
conflict, as understood by Seward and Greeley, was not 
whether Americans should be free or slave, but whether 
the slaves should be black or white. The question was 
not whether an aristocracy should be the controlling ele- 
ment of power in the American government, but whether 
the mud-sill of that aristocracy should be the half-civil- 
ized African or the " poor white trash." The Northern 
masters could show by facts and figures that they, by 
using white slaves, could aiake millions, while the 
Southern masters by using negro slaves were making 
thousands. As the chief end of nations as well as of 
individuals is to make money and get rich, this argument 
seemed to be conclusive in favor of white slavery. Indeed, 
that portion of the Southern people who had been indoc- 
trinated into the belief that the only object of life is to 
make money, had accepted, in theory at least, the North- 
ern idea of slavery ; and if the matter had been left alone, 
this system of slavery would after awhile have been 
adopted at the South, because money-making men there 
had been convinced that it would pay better. 

But these aristocratic powers could not wait. Each 
one had in its own section got possession of the State 
government, and subsidized to its use every other organ- 
ized institution, whether it was political or religious. 
The great struggle then was for the national government. 
Whichever party could get possession of that, and con- 
solidate its power in its behalf, would probably succeed 

10* 



114 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

in fastening its system of slavery upon the western 
world. For awhile the advocates of negro slavery suc- 
ceeded. They got control of the Congress and executive, 
and the Supreme Court, too, decided in their favor. This 
party then believed that the power of the national gov- 
ernment ought to be supreme, and that its laws ought to 
be executed everywhere. The other party denied the 
supremacy of the national government, and advocated 
States' rights ; they did, too, by their personal liberty bills 
and other antagonistic laws, virtually nullify the laws of 
the national legislature and prevent their execution. But 
the situation changed ; and circumstances, you know, alter 
eases. The advocates of white slavery got possession 
of the national government. Then the friends of negro 
slavery denied the supremacy of its power, and set up 
States' rights as their defense. The other party, who had 
first in the name of States' rights resisted the authority 
of the national government and prevented the execution 
of its laws, claimed for it not only supreme power over 
the States, but the right to destroy these States by war, 
and to build on their ruins a military despotism. 

Knowing full well that neither in the Constitution of 
the United States, nor in the history of American demo- 
cracy, could even the shadow of a pretext be found to 
justify this monstrous perversion of the legitimate objects 
of government, they publicly ignore both that Consti- 
tution and that history, and set up as excuses to justify 
their monstrous wrongs those pleas which tyrants and 
despots have used for six thousand years to justify their 
robberies and plunderings of mankind. They declare 
that, by the right of subjugation and conquest, they- have 
acquired the power to make millions of their fellow-men 
subserve their own purposes ; that they have thus ac- 
quired the right to use their lives, their liberties, and their 
property to serve their interest and their pleasure. 

Could anything be more repugnant to the genius of 
American liberty than this ? Could anything be more at 
war with the spirit of Christianity, which was the mother 
of American liberty? Here is a little community of five 
persons ; three quarrel with two, and because they have 
the power they beat them. Now, because we three have 



TEE SECOND WITNESS, ' II5 

the power to overcome you two and to beat you, there- 
fore have we a right to take your property, ay, your very 
lives; so that hereafter, if you are permitted to have 
any property or even to live, you will owe it to our grace 
and favor. These three do first commit a crime against 
God, and against all right notions of justice, by beating 
and trampling their fellow-men under their feet ; and then 
they use this crime as a justification of the other crime 
of robbing them of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness. Such are the notions of government boldly pro- 
mulgated by that great moneyed power which to-day 
rules this country. How different are they from those 
principles which our fathers proclaimed to the world 
when they founded the American democracy ! 

"Might makes right" is the law which governs this 
country to-day. To answer the purposes of this mon- 
strous usurpation, the very forms of American liberty 
must die; the States must be blotted out, and military 
satrapies built upon their ruins. The white man must 
be disinherited of his birthright to life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness. In tea of the States the negro 
must be organized into a great political power, governed 
by the military satraps and carpet-bag spies, the agents 
of this great usurpation to perpetuate its power. The 
national debt must be doubled, and interest paid in 
gold. The annual expenses of the government must 
be run up to five hundred millions a year (instead of 
twenty millions as it was in Washington's day), in order 
that the power of this bondautocracy may be supreme. 
The millions of working men must w^ork harder and live 
harder, in order that this upstart aristocracy may live in 
gilded pomp and in glorious splendor. Ay ! the wives 
and daughters of the laboring people must shiver in their 
scanty clothes, in order that the wives and daughters of 
the bondantocracy may gild their drunken, licentious 
revelries with silks and jewels and diamonds costing- 
thousands and tens of thousands of dollars. That the rich 
may live in princely palaces, the poor must be crammed 
into garrets and cellars, slaves of filth and crime. 

But this mammon, this money-god, don't know what 
it is doing ; it don't know what manner of people it is 



116 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

trifling with ; it don't know the character of tlje people 
whom it is wronging, robbing, and insulting ; it don't seem 
to know that the people it is trying to m.ake slaves of 
have the power in their own hands ; it don't seem to know 
that tlie liberties of this country were born of Chris- 
tianity ; it don't seem to know that its mission, its des- 
tiny, is, not only to destroy oppression in America, but 
by the influence of its example to overturn the tyranny 
of the world ; it don't seem to know that its usurpations 
and wrongs are waking up that fierce spirit of liberty ; 
it don't seem to know that that spirit will presently blow 
over the country and sweep it like a besom of destruction 
to ruin ; it don't seem to see these dark clouds hanging 
there, ominous of the coming storm, — a storm which will 
destroy not only aristocracy, but all those institutions 
which have been built as bulwarks to defend aristocracy. 
Priestcraft, which for eighteen hundred years has 
united with the political power to rob mankind of the 
rights and liberties and happiness offered to him by Chris- 
tianity, must perish. Political factions, which have been 
the tools of great aristocratic powers, to flatter, cajole, 
humbug and force men to be their slaves, must perish. 
Banks and big manufacturing establishments, and whisky 
distilleries, and railroad and canal companies, and indeed 
every money-monopoly which serves to build up and 
maintain aristocrac}-, must die. Falsehood, with all her 
institutions, all her customs, must be driven out of the 
world, and Truth must live and rule and reign. God, 
and not mammon, must be our God. The Bible, and not 
the theologies of the Pharisees, must be our religion. 
Virtue, and not vice, must be our practice. And then, 
and not till then, will we reap with glad hearts the 
harvest of liberty, and peace, and universal prosperity. 



THE THIRD WITNESS. IH 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 

She was a woman ; and her face was pale and care- 
worn ; it looked as if sorrow had plowed many a deep 
furrow there. She said her mother was a good woman ; 
she taught her from her infancy to read the word of God 
and revere its truths. 

When, said she, I grew up to be a woman, I married. 
What a bright day was that for me ! A new world burst 
upon my mind". Henceforth would I be loved and 
cherished as a wife, revered and honored as a mother ; 
I would have troubles, too, no doubt ; but what are 
troubles to the patience, the constancy, and truth of a 
woman's soul ! What will not that soul do and suffer as 
long as it is lit up by the smiles of one she loves, cheered 
by his confidence and sustained by his truth ? To toil is 
sweet ; to bend over the couch of sickness, to hear and 
feel its every groan, to guard it with sleepless eyes 
through the long tedious watches of the night, to antici- 
pate and minister to its least wants, to alleviate the 
slightest pain that disturbs its fitful slumbers, all, all these 
things will she do with pleasure, so long as he to whom 
she has plighted her vows of love and obedience cherishes 
that love, and proves himself worthy of it. 

My husband too was a good man, noble and true. 
How beautiful were the early days of our love ! I 
thought our happiness was full. But how did it run over 
in gushing tears of joy, when I presented him with our 
first little cherub-boy! As he gazed with manly pride 
upon this little nngel which God had sent to us, to be, as 
we then fondly believed, a pledge of our perpetual union 
and unchanging love, a tear stole unconsciously from 
those bright eyes, albeit they were unused to the weep- 
ing mood. Oh, what would I give to be able to call back 
those halcyon days, — but one of those days even, — for 
it Would be an oasis in the desert of life ! 



US THE GREAT TRIAL. 

But the devil cnme into our little Eden, as be had done 
into the paradise-of old. But he did not come to woman, 
as he did before. The devil knew better, and man knows 
better too, than to put upon our sex the crimes and follies 
of the present generation. He came, too, in the form of 
a serpent ; for what can be more like that subtle, cunning 
reptile, than a canting, hypocritical priest, who has put 
on the livery of heaven to serve the devil in. To make 
us in any way responsible for the wickedness of the pres- 
ent age is only a lie, which the devil has put into the 
mouth of man to excuse his own blame. Mother Eve 
first sinned, it is true ; but because of that sin God made 
her the dependent and servant of man. The Creator 
subjected us to his will and authority, in order that 
we might not have it in our power even to cause man to 
sin again. There is not this day in the whole world one 
single solitary woman who is not subject to the influence 
and control of some man. It may not be her husband ; 
for be it said, to man's shame, that many a woman has 
plighted her love and obedience to a man who is not 
worthy of either. Ay, many a woman has a husband 
who is not worthy of her respect even. 

Yes, the preachers who teach us our notions of right 
and wrong, and whom we believe and trust because they 
come to us as the prophets of God, the apostles of Chris- 
tianity, are often the devil's ministers for seducing, cor- 
rupting, and debauching the world. For hundreds of 
years they have taught the people their religion ; and as 
a people's religion is, so will be their moral, social, and 
political affairs. Anybody who will think for one moment 
will understand this truth. Had every minister of the 
gospel, so-called, and every religious newspaper, based 
all their moral teachings upon this simple, plain com- 
mandment of our Saviour, — " Love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself," it would 
have saved us from ninety-nine hundredths of the crimes 
and follies which this generation has committed. It 
would have spared us, too, ninety-nine hundredths of the 
sorrows and sighs which we have endured. 

But, instead of the commandments of God, they have 
taught us abolitionism, which means in plain English to 



HIE llllRD WITNESS. 119 

hate our neij^hbors of the South ; mesmerism and spirit- 
ualism, which are infidelity ; turning away from the ways 
of God to hold communion with devils and wicked spirits ; 
free-loveism and womanism, which are only fine names 
for adultery and fornication ; Maine liquor laws, temper- 
ance laws, and whisky-tax bills, which put it in the power 
of sharpers and swindlers to make whisky and sell it with- 
out paying any tax on it at all ; the weak and the igno- 
rant, who make the attempt and are caught, pay the 
tax for all. These boasted reform-laws have other beauties 
which ought to be mentioned. They give to the cold- 
blooded, avaricious creatures who devised them, the 
privilege of drinking their toddies and juleps behind the 
door, and thus save them the cost of treating their 
guests, — a thing which it is pleasant for a warm heart and 
generous hospitality to do. 

One other merit these modern reform-laws,* so-called, 
have, which ought in a special manner to recommend them 
to the masses of the people, that vast majority who make 
their living by the sweat of their brow. 'Tis true, some 
abolition member of Congress calls them "poor white 
trash ;" but even if they are, they ought to be pitied and 
not robbed ; indeed, they ought to be pitied. Woman as 
I am, I pity and despise them too. For, whilst they are 
boasting of their equality and manhood suffrage, their 
masters at Washington, when they deign to notice tiiem 
at all (they are so much occupied with the negro that 
they scarcely ever think of them), call them " poor white 
trash." At the same time they are placing on their backs 
burdens to be carried for an upstart aristocracy, which 
even mules would kir;k against. This fact ought, I say, 
to recommend these laws to the people at large ; it makes 
the whisky business a vast smuggling operation, which 
can only be carried on by men who have money ; it puts 
it in the power of these moneyed swindlers to sell the 
poor man his dram at their own prices; ay, it almost 
puts it out of the power of the honest, sober, and indus- 
trious laborer to buy whisky enough for medicine in his 
family, and yet it does not save the drunkard, poor as a 
beggar though he be, from its curse and its ruin. p]ver 
since the establishment of governments among men, the 



120 ^V/A' GREAT TRIAL. 

world has been cursed bv moneyed despotisms in some 
shape or other ; but never has aristocracy assumed so 
hideous a shape, or stooped so low. 

The next religion these preachers taught us was war 
and plunder, the legitimate fruits of their pious infidelity. 
Indeed, this was only another form which they gave to 
"the unknown god" whom they have taught us ignor- 
antly to worship. One half of our once-happy and 
prosperous country a heap of ruins ; hundreds of thou- 
sands of Northern freemen, so-called, bought up for less 
prices per head than the negroes they went to liberate 
were selling for, and sent forth to suffer, to bleed and die 
upon a hundred battle-fields ; a government more des- 
potic and more expensive than that of Russia ; a public 
debt which will curse the laboring classes of this country, 
their children, and their children's children, with poverty 
and degradation ; to crown all, an aristocracy the mean- 
est and lowest, the most heartless and unfeeling, the most 
corrupting and demoralizing, the most wicked and damn- 
ing, which has ever cursed the world. All other aris- 
tocracies have had some redeeming traits of character: 
they had age, which gave them dignity and politeness, 
wisdom, which gave them virtue and propriety, a histori- 
cal name, which led them to practice the virtues of their 
fathers; some idea of a God and some regard for the vir- 
tues which represent the attributes of his character ; and, 
among all the aristocracies I have ever heard of or read 
about, cowardice has been justly held in supreme contempt. 

Turn from this, and take a look at our aristocracy. 
The priest, the politician, the bondautocrat, our masters, 
are upstarts, born but yesterday as it were ; they have 
no parentage, or if they have they are ashamed to own 
it; many of them creatures who were cast upon the 
world by chance, and driven by the cold heartlessness of 
an age utterly devoid of benevolence to steal in their 
childhood to keep from starving. Their proficiency in 
these little stealings, adroitly done inside the forms of 
devilish laws made for their protection, after awhile 
recommended them to political charlatans, to financial 
and commercial gamblers, who have had the control of 
this country for years. 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 121 

Through the influence of these sharpers they have 
been enabled gradually to extend their thieving opera- 
tions, until they have acquired absolute control over all 
the affairs of the country. Proficiency in the art of 
lying pointed them out as eminently fit to do the dirty 
work of angry political factions. Proficiency in the arts 
of lying and stealing were the qualifications necessary 
for them to take the places of those whose financial tricks 
and commercial frauds had made them merchant-princes 
of the country. Proficiency in all the arts of hypocrisy 
make them fit ministers of these^^cclesiastical despot- 
isms which in the name of God and Christ, like the 
Pharisees of old, compass heaven and earth to make one 
proselyte, and when he is made they make him two-fold 
more the child of the devil than themselves. 

Many are ready to answer me on this wise : These 
men, whom you are abusing, deserve to be honored. 
They started poor, and got rich ; they started poor, and 
got to be successful preachers and politicians. Yes, you 
have honored them ; you've honored the politician to your 
country's ruin ; you've honored financial and commercial 
gamblers until the toiling millions, once the proud demo- 
cracy of America, have become the serfs of an upstart bond- 
autocracy ; you have honored a hypocritical priesthood 
until they have built up a vast ecclesiastical despotism, 
by which they exact from you tithes of mint, cummin, 
and anise, whilst the weightier matters of the law, judg- 
ment and mercy and faith, are utterly forgotten. The 
people have been in the hands of their masters, the 
priests and politicians, so long, that they do not seem to 
think for themselves any more at all ; they have forgot- 
ten that they have either minds or souls. Some of these 
days they will wake up : it may be when it is too late ; 
it may be when the politician has riveted their chains, 
and when the priest has left them, without a hope, shiver- 
ing upon the banks of the dark river of death. Will 
their ignorance break their shackles, or will it bridge that 
dark river which not even a spirit from heaven, mucii 
less a spirit from earth, can cross without a bridge ? 

I look around me and see a hundred men whom I 
saw start out in the world together. Out of these, three 
F 11 



122 TilE GREAT TRIAL. 

have been successful : one as a priest, one as a politician, 
and one as a money-tyrant. I knew them all when they 
were boys. The first was what is called a good boy, a 
boy of rather a timid disposition and considerable rever- 
ence ; his timidity kept him from those little bad mis- 
chievous things which other boys did; a good deal of 
pride led him to make good use of his time in stud}^ 
These qualities recommended him to the church as one 
who would likely make a good agent; they took him up, 
and educated him for the ministry. He was not a Chris- 
tian, but as he was destined to be a Christian minister he 
had to assume an air of sanctity and observe the cere- 
monies and sacraments ; hence at the very outset he com- 
menced a big game of hypocrisy. By the time he got 
through the theological schools, where all the requisite 
qualifications are taught, — even the solemn tone of voice, 
the grave face, and a punctual attendance upon the ex- 
ternal duties of a churchman, — he was a bigoted Pharisee. 

As he was utterly ignorant of the spirit of Christianity, 
he at first took up the theology of the church and taught 
that. Being skilled in logic, rhetoric, and other tricks of 
popular oratory, he gathered into the church a good many 
churchmen, but precious few Christians. But religion 
must be something more than a belief, something more 
than a simple assent of the mind ; certain acts must be 
done, to represent its good deeds ; a faith without works 
is dead. As he had never repented, it could hardly be 
expected that he, like the Master whom he only professed 
to serve, would go about doing good, opening the eyes of 
the blind, unstopping the ears of the deaf, and preaching 
the gospel to the poor; it could hardly be expected of 
such a one that he would go out into the highways and 
hedges to the lame, the halt, and the blind. 

But there are things he can do, even if he is not a Chris- 
tian. He can preach big sermons, garnish them with words 
of human wisdom, attract the attention of the rich and 
great, build a larger and finer church, get up organs, 
choirs, and other pretty things to entertain and amuse his 
hearers. He organizes Sunday-schools, Bible societies, 
theological schools, temperance societies, abolition soci 
eties, mesmerisms, spiritualisms, and many others, which 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 133 

are all human. iaventions, very well calculated to bniW 
up and extend the power of the church as a political and 
social organization. He makes the conditions of mem- 
bership easy, that is, acceptable to the carnal mind : the 
member must assent to his notions of theology, attend 
upon all the observances of the church ; he must pay the 
priest a good salary ; he must patronize all the auxiliary 
societies of the church ; in a word, he must pay tithes of 
mint, cummin, and anise; he must not swear out loud, 
and must not take a dram nnless it be behind the door. 
If he will do these things punctually, he has a full and 
free indulgence to practice all those artifices and frauds 
which avarice has devised to trap the unwary, to cheat 
the ignorant, and to trample under foot the weak. 

I have often wondered at their irreconcilable hatred to 
wine. Is it because it stirs up in the bosom of mankind 
social feelings, and .excites warm and generous senti- 
ments ? Is it because it leads men, even those who are 
not Christians, to spend their money freely ? to pay the 
laborer better wages, to give to the needy, and to help 
those who are sinking under the accumulated burdens of 
misfortune ? But if money were spent for all of these 
foolish things, where would enough come from to gild 
with regal splendor the pompous power of these ecclesi- 
astical despotisms ? Where would enough come from to 
enable them, in conjunction with political usurpations 
and social frauds called bondautocracies, to beggar and to 
enslave the great masses of the people ? Or is it because 
wine and social parties have a great tendency to make 
people candid ? Is it because hypocrisy, the great pillar 
which supports modern phariseeism, miscalled the church, 
fears anything which makes people frank and outspoken? 

The boy wiio made the politician was a genial sunny- 
tempered fellow. His perceptions were quick, his speech 
ready and witty ; he was not a hard student, but picked 
up a heap of superficial knowledge without much study ; 
he played truant, but never got whipped, for he always 
had ready a lie which bore so strong a resemblance to the 
truth that the master could never make up his mind about 
his guilt ; so, being bound by law to give him the benefit 
of a doubt, he always went scot-free. Political factions 



'IM THE GREAT TRIAL. 

were not long taking the cue of this young man. As the 
party his father belonged to was in the minority in his 
district, the other faction proffered him an office to recant 
the political faith in which he had been educated and to 
come over to them. This was not hard to do, since the 
public sentiment of the country honors a poor boy who 
wins money or popularity, without regard to the means 
he uses. Thus does the moral sense of the country en- 
courage him to begin life by an act. of treason to his 
former friends and to his own convictions of right. 

The boy who made the bondautocrat was one of those 
cold phlegmatic fellows who never play like other boys. 
When he did join in their sports he was always in 
earnest. When he played marbles he always played 
"for keeps;" he studied the game and understood it 
thoroughly; he could halloo "kicks," " no kicks," "knuckle 
down," quicker than any other boy; he always took 
"everies," but never permitted any other boy to do it; 
he never played with a boy who was a match for him in 
dexterity ; he always played, too, with boys who were 
smaller than himself, so that if any dispute arose which 
could not be settled in a friendly way the odds were 
always on his side; when he got his pockets full of 
marbles, he would sell out to some thoughtless, careless, 
free-hearted boy, who did not have the ready cash, but was 
willing to give two prices in order to get a short credit. 

As a man, he makes sharp bargains with the ignorant; 
and when they ojyect because they do not understand 
them, he calls upon the law, whose fundamental maxim 
is; that everybody knows all its quillets and quiddets, 
its ten thousand disingenuous tricks and villainous so- 
phistries. He sells to a foolish man a piece of land or 
other real estate at two prices, persuading* him to sell all 
the little property he has on hand, to make the first pay- 
ment. When the next payment becomes duf^ he puts it 
up to be sold for cash, buys it in for half what he sold it at, 
and sells whatever other little propert}^ the poor man 
may have, to pay the expenses of the transaction. This 
bondautocrat is, too, a bigoted churchman, a class-leader, 
elder, deacon, or something else in the church of the priest 
just described. 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 1,25 

I reraeraber once during harvest-time he stood in the 
field and counted the hours which were lost by his work- 
hands on account of little showers from passing clouds; 
yea, while the Father of mercies was giving drink to the 
thirsty ground, and cooling the parched and stagnant air 
with refreshing showers, this phylacteried Pharisee, worse 
than a heathen, was robbing the poor laborer of his hire, 
thus converting the healing shower which God had sent 
to purify the air, sick of stagnant heat, into a curse. I 
remember one of his laborers was a cripple. It took him 
longer to get to a sheltering tree out of the shower, and 
a little longer to get back to his work, than the other 
hands. These minutes were reckoned in the settlement, 
although he had hired the cripple for half wages and he 
was a brother member of the same church. 

Another time he lectured his son sharply for spending 
a day enjoying the pleasures of a social party. " See," 
he added, to make the grave lecture more impressive, 
"see what you have lost by it. While you were frolic- 
ing and spending money foolishly, John Grabb (a neigh- 
bor bondautocrat's son) was, like a good boy and dutiful 
son, attending to business. He bought Joe Careless's 
cow for sixteen dollars, and she is well worth twenty-six. 
He bought Simon Simple's horse for sixty-seven dollars, 
and he is well worth a hundred." These were the last 
cow and the last horse of two poor neighbors, sold under 
the hammer to meet the heartless demands of some brother 
bondautocrat. 

These, however, are only little rustic games played by 
the unsophisticated money tyrants in the country ; they 
are mere child's play to the gigantic schemes of plunder 
and oppression carried on by the manufacturing, finan- 
cial, and commercial robbers in the cities. These don't 
have crippled ignorant laborers — Simon Simple and Joe 
Careless — working for them at half wages, but thou- 
sands of intelligent mechanics and clerks ; yea, men who 
in mind and moral character are their superiors, men who 
are unequal to them only in the arts of lying and stealing, — 
the pre eminent qualifications for amassing great fortunes. 

These are the poor men who have become rich and 
great ; these are the men whom the people delight to 

11* 



12^ THE GREAT TRIAL. 

honor; and their gilded pomp and power, built upon 
the graves of their honor and upon the ruins of their 
liberties, are the gods they worship. The preacher has 
their souls in his keeping, and makes them pay well for 
preparing them for the devil. The bondautoerat fixes 
their social position, and makes them pay him hand- 
somely for making them the mud-sill of society. The 
politician amuses them as if they were children with 
such baubles as universal suffrage, while he sells them 
out a dozen times a year to the lobby agents of the bond- 
autocracy. The church, with its massive walls of granite, 
brick, or marble, — its simplicity often marred by the 
gaudy and out-of-place ornaments which an ignorant and 
perverted taste has hung about it, awkward and ill-con- 
structed State-houses, wretched mimicries of regal splen- 
dor, but like it only in reckless and extravagant cost, for 
they were built by contractors in partnership with their 
political masters, — these, with their priestly ceremonies 
and their political hobbies, are the gods they worship. 
The palatial residences of the bondautocracy, with a whole 
train of showy, fashionable fooleries, come in for a full 
share of their adoration, whilst the God in whose hands 
their breath is, and whose are all their ways, have they 
not glorified. When I see millions whose birthright 
was a pure Christianity with honor and truth, whose heri- 
tage was liberty, — men whom God created in his own 
image and called his sons, — serving such masters, and 
worshiping such gods, I thank my God that I am a 
woman ; weak and friendless as I am, 1 would not be the 
servant of such despicable slaves. 

But I said I knew a hundred persons who started out 
in life together. What has become of the other ninety- 
seven ? They are the slaves I have been describing.— 
slaves of these petty upstart aristocracies, — worshipers 
of idols. Never did heathens worship such idols; for 
even when they worship gods of wood and stone they 
3ndowthem with some imaginary virtues. These ecclesi- 
astical despotisms have become the symbol of hypocrisy, 
politics the synonym of lying, the bondautocracy a big- 
cancer upon the body politic; and the whole body must 
be eaten up to feed this filthy sore. 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 12*7 

When I bear these same slaves and idol worshipers 
prating about freedom and universal suffrage, I don't 
know whether to laugh at their ignorance or to weep for 
their crimes. What is their boasted freedom ? A right to 
vote, a right to serve political factions, a right to change 
masters, a right to choose as their master a vulgar clown 
who had won some reputation as a rail-splitter, which 
recommended him to a mad political faction as a good 
entering wedge to split the Union with ; the right to 
choose a drunken tailor, who won some notoriety by 
deserting his own country and people and by helping a 
mad faction destroy it. lie has won more of the same 
kind of notoriety by permitting the same run-mad factions 
to use him as a tool to destroy the dignity and power 
of an office once held by a Washington and a Jackson. 

They will have the privilege of changing masters again 
soon. Will they select one who has a reputation as a 
butcher of cattle, or one who won fame as a butcher of 
men ? What a wonderful privilege it is to vote! How 
long would it take these same men to teach their horses 
and dogs to vote ? And after the voting was over they 
could go back, the dog to his kennel, and the horse to 
his dray, like their masters. How often have they not 
voted ? Are they any the less the politician's fool and 
the bondautocrat's slave ? They vote for equality, and 
they are the mud-sill of a heartless moneyed aristocracy. 
They vote freedom, and drudge along under burdens of 
debt and taxation such as an Arab's camel wouldn't bear. 
Why, they might have all these luxuries without voting. 
The people of Austria don't vote, and yet they live in 
the full enjoyment of the privileges which these people 
seem to be so proud of. Even the semi-barbarous negroes 
of the South will not thank them for this boon of freedom 
when they come to find out what it is. To them it will 
only be the privilege of working harder for harder masters. 

But these tyrants know what they are doing, if their 
slaves don't. They saw their white slaves growing rest- 
less under the weight of accumulating burdens. They 
began to be a little afraid that their patience, though equal 
to that of a mule, would wear out. For fear that those of 
them who have a little spirit left would kick against the 



128 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

new wrongs which they are about to saddle on them, for 
fear some of them, retaining some recollection of the an- 
cient democracy of America, and some veneration for its 
noble founders who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and 
their sacred honors to prevent a British king and a British 
aristocracy from making slaves of them, — for fear, I say, 
that some, urged by these sacred motives and hallowed 
memories, would oppose the accursed design, which is 
now forming, to do what the British king and British 
aristocracy failed to do, — for fear that some of their white 
slaves are not yet educated up to the grand purpose of 
the progress and reform party, to seize the national gov- 
ernment by means of the army, clothe its chief with regal 
honors and make a hereditary nobility of the bonded aris- 
tocracy, — they have provided negroes to vote in their 
stead. These, no doubt, will be more tractable. No 
doubt they will be able to make them vote right, through 
the agency of their military satraps and carpet-bag spies. 

That harlot too, which impudently calls herself the 
church, is not only ready but impatient for the grand 
finale. Already is she looking with lascivious eyes upon 
the state. Already has one assignation been held. Al- 
ready is conceived, in the womb of that vile whore, the 
hideous monster which is to destroy the democracy of 
America and build a despotism on its ruins. Infidelity, 
in any shape or form, is horrible enough : it means moral, 
social, political death. But infidelity, springing from the 
loins of political usurpation and from the womb of phari- 
seeism, who can describe its monstrous proportions? 
Whose virtue will be safe from its slimy touch ? Whose 
innocence will save them from its indiscriminate and 
bloodthirsty revenge, and whose justice will shield them 
from its rapacious greed of plunder? This infidel god 
of modern Pbariseeisra is never done changing : as fast 
as the people get a little used to one horrible shape, he 
assumes another. 

This devil (that is its true name), having reduced man, 
comes to tempt woman. He uses man, or creatures 
styling themselves men, to accomplish his diabolical de- 
signs. He goes first to the preacher, a fit tool to do his 
dirty work; for he is either an infidel, prating hypocriti- 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 129 

cally about religion, or, what is worse, a Pharisee 
wrapped securely in the mantle of bijjoted sdf-riyhte- 
ousness. The latter was the kind of sub-devil used to 
destroy our once happy famil3^ He taught my hus- 
band to be a negro worshiper first. Then came the 
grand hifalutiu clap-trap of spiritualism. Gradually ray 
husband was won over to these new religions and strange 
gods. 

As a dutiful and faithful wife, I went with him. Ruth 
was one of the models my parents had taught me to 
pattern after; 1 determined that beautiful sentiment of 
Ruth, " Whither thou goest, I will go ; thy people shall 
be my people, and thy God my God," should regulate my 
conduct towards my husband. Little did I thnik that he 
would carry me into the deserts of infidelity, and teach 
me to worship the simooms as gods. What a difference 
there is between the infidel gods — those gods which man 
creates for our worship — and that God who made the 
heavens and earth, the seas, and fountains of water. The 
nearer we approach the Almighty the more do we tremble 
at his power, and bow down to worship his wisdom ; mor- 
tality dare not gaze upon his unveiled glory, lest it die; 
even through the created universe, which hangs like a 
cloud about his throne, we see the I am, the God from ever- 
lasting to everlasting, the same yesterday, to-day and for- 
ever; but familiarity with the idols of infidels begets 
contempt. Hence it was that the heathens had so many 
gods ; hence it is, modern infidelity has to invent so many 
new ones. 

The one whose worship proved fatal to our happiness 
was the hideous monster called woman's rights. Free- 
dom in its modern sense means the right of every man 
and every woman to do as he or she pleases ; this at 
least is the pretty theory. This, I say, is the theory, 
the philosophy so called. But how will everybody secure 
this precious privilege to do as he pleases? Why, wise 
philosophers of progress and reform, so called, have found 
out that if you will take a little bit of paper and write 
some rascal's name on it, called politician, and write some 
fool's name — your own for instance — on the back of it, 
and put it into a little box called the ballot-box, that ever 



130 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

after you will be perfectly free to do just as you please; 
this is Uae pretty theory, Tiie practice is slightly differ- 
ent; it fixes a condition which doesn't appear in- the 
theory. The practice is the same, with this slight and 
unimportant difference : everybody can do as he pleases, 
if he has the power. 

Foi"* instance, he can have fine horses and carriages, 
and go in great style, if he is 7'ich ; he can work when 
he pleases, and play when he pleases, if he has the means 
to keep it up ; be can travel over the world, and see its 
wonders, if he has the money to pay his way ; he can 
support his wife like a lady, if he can pay the expenses ; 
he can move in the first circles, so called, and be on terms 
of equality with the elite of fashionable society, if they 
will let him; he can make his family comfortable and 
happy, if he works hard, — if he gets good wages, and if 
he does not have to pay out a large portion of his wages 
to bolster up the tyranny of a corrupt and wasteful usurpa- 
tion, miscalled government ; if he doesn't have to pay 
out another portion to nourish a greedy, debauched, and 
licentious bondautocracy, and still another portion to feed 
a hypocritical hireling priesthood. 

I see men vote, and their task-masters impose on them 
additional burdens. I see men vote, and their rich lords 
pass them by with as much contempt as if they were not 
tit to untie their shoes. I see men vote, and toil year in 
and year out for wages hardly sufficient to keep soul 
and body together. I see men vote, and sell themselves 
to substitute-buyers, to go to shambles of death, — aye, sell 
themselves for lower prices than the negro slaves were 
selling for, whom they went to set free. I see men vote, 
and their wives sent adrift upon the world to shift for 
themselves. I see men vote, and their children driven by 
that most inexorable slave-driver, necessity, to steal. I 
have seen men, who got rich under the forms of devilish 
laws and wicked customs, send these friendless children 
of necessity to prison-cells, to expiate their crimes. I see 
men vote, and their pretty daughters, protected by no 
law, — for there is no human law to protect them, and 
divine laws are forgotten, — driven for refuge to those 
houses of shame around which infamy draws her cur- 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 131 

tains forever. These are the precious privileges now offered 
to woman in the name of woman's rights. 

Our preacher wheedled my husband, who was a mem- 
ber of his church, into it. This was not hard to do; he 
had already led him from the pleasant ways of Cliris- 
tianity into the dark uncertain ways of unbefief; ah-eady 
was our little bark adrift upon the black tide of infidelity'; 
faith in God, the magnet of its course, was gone; already 
too had he drifted out of sight of those beacon lights 
which revelation has set upon the rocky shores of doubt. 
In our extremity we were willing to put into any harbor. 
My husband took with the thing directly; nor was he 
long in persuading me to it. Indeed, my husband was a 
changed man ; his conduct towards me was very differ- 
ent from what it bad been. I felt indeed that we could 
not long avoid a collision. 

It was a pleasant thought to me to be placed on terms 
of equality with him. If quarrels should come, and I 
knew they would, I would then be able to defend my- 
self To be equal to my husband, — 'twas a happy thought. 
Once it was not so. When he was a good man, I was 
proud to look up to him as my superior. I was most 
happy then to know that under the protection of his 
manhood, his truth and his honor, my virtue, my beauty, 
yea, even my frailties, were secure. But now that he 
had brcome a bad man, an infidel, I felt that I needed 
some oilier protection. I did not know then that de- 
ceitful bait was intended for my bane ; I did not see the 
poison hid under the sugar on top; but since have I 
tasted its bitterness, and my soul has been convulsed by 
its deadly spasms. 

My husband came home one day angry and fretful. I 
had been educated to patience and obedience, and thought 
it would be better to wait for some special provocation 
before asserting my newly-acquired rights ; then would I 
let him know, once for all, that I was his equal. The 
desired moment had come. My husband, I discovered, 
was drunk. I told him he must excuse me for the 
evening : I could not keep a drunken man's company ; 
I would occupy another room until he got sober. His 
eyes glared upon me like the eyes of an angry beast, and 



132 TUE GREAT TRIAL. 

with an oath he dared me attempt it. Not doubting for 
a moment the truth of my new religion, I started to exe- 
cute my purpose. He seized me by the hair, knotted on 
the back of my head, and jerked me to the floor. 

I sprang- to my feet in a rage, exclaiming as I did so, 
" I am your equal, sir. I will punish you for this wicked 
conduct." I flew at him, and scratched his face with my 
nails. With one blow he felled me to the floor, and 
dragged me to the door as if I had been a child. He 
opened the door, and, picking me up as if I had been a 
chip, dashed me out, saying, as he did so, " Go, hunt com- 
pany that will suit you." Ah, then I knew, — no, I knew 
nothing. My brain was a whirlpool of madness, boiling 
and foaming until I 'was blind. Whither would I go? 
I thought of an old woman who lived in the neighbor- 
hood. 

When my husband first brought me to his home, this 
old woman was a favorite friend. She often came to 
our house, and we often visited her. Aunt Dorothy was 
tt good old woman, kind, open-hearted, and sunny-tem- 
pered ; her house was small, but neatly kept. I had often 
consulted her about my housekeeping aff'airs, and she 
could always give me good advice. After awhile we 
began to get rich and to go more out into the world. We 
then sought other associations; we went into the best 
circles, so called ; Aunt Dorothy's simple old-fashioned 
ways lost all attraction for me. We attended temperance 
societies, spiritual rappings, abolition societies, woman's 
righta' meetings, and so on. 

Aunt Dorothy would not talk about these things ; and 
when I v^ould force these subjects on her, she would 
tell me plain out that she did not like them. She said 
she did not like these new-fashioned religions, she "would 
not worship these strange gods. She had read the Bible 
all her life, but had never found any of those new notions 
in it: it did indeed tell about strange gods, — idols which 
men would make to worship, instead of the one living 
and true God ; but it told us about these only to tell us 
not to worship them. 

She would say, " I am afraid these spirits people are 
talking with are evil spirits; and then these new kind of 



THE THIRD WIT^i:SS. 133 

preachers, abolitionists, try harder to make us hate the 
white people of the South than to make us love the 
negro. The Bible doesn't teach us to hate, but to love. 
These abolitionists, who seem so much concerned for the 
nej2^ro away off in the South, don't care much for the poor 
white people here at home. I have always tried to lay 
up a little out of my small earnings for the poor ; but I 
never have half as much to spare as they need here at 
home. I think we ought to make our own poor com- 
fortable first, and then it will be time enough to attend 
to other people. Indeed, I see men making a great ado 
about these things, whose families are not as comfortable 
as they might be; I see women, too, attending to them, 
who don't attend to their own children as well as Chris- 
tian mothers ought. As to the women voting, I think 
they had better stay at home and attend to their families. 
I think if they would train up their sons in the nurture 
and admonition of the Lord, they might trust them to do 
the voting ; if they would raise up their sons to be honor- 
able, upright, and noble men, their daughters might trust 
their rights to their care. I don't see that much good 
comes of all this voting, anyhow: the men all vote, and 
I don't see that they are any better off for it. 

"When we started out in the world we were poor. My 
husband had no vote, and yet we didn't have to work 
any harder than poor people do nowadays; we lived a 
heap better, too ; we did not have to pay such high taxes, 
and then everything you had to buy wasn't so high. As 
to equality, they talk so much about, there was not so 
much difference between the rich and the poor then as there 
is now. Poor people, if they were honest, were as well 
received at rich people's houses as anybody ; if they were 
not honest they were not well received anywhere, except 
at jails and penitentiaries. People were a heap honester 
then, too ; if anybody told you anything, you could set it 
down as true; nowadays you can't believe anybody, nor 
trust anybody ; then a man's word was better than 
people's bonds are now. Nowadays the rich and poor 
don't mix at all, society is all divided up into classes; 
the class you've got to go into, — it doesn't depend upon 
how much sense you've got, nor how much honor nor 

12 



134 TJIK GREAT TIUAL. 

virtue, but upon how much money you've got. In old 
times the preachers were poor men, and went about doing 
good; the poor had the gospel preached to them; the 
poor, too, were comforted and cared for by Christians. 
Now the preachers get big pay, they live among the rich 
and preach for them ; the poor lie at the gate, like Lazarus 
of old, begging for the crumbs which fall from their 
tables. 

" As the Bible religion doesn't suit men who are so 
much in love with the riches and honors of this world, 
the preachers have made these new religions and strange 
gods to suit their rich paymasters. These strange gods 
promise them a monopoly of the good things of this world, 
and the highest happiness of heaven in the next. In the 
times I speak of, rich men, who were at the top of society, 
were such as were known to be sensible, honest, and 
benevolent. Other people patterned after them ; if other 
rich men wanted to be as much thought of and honored, 
they had to use their means freely for benevolent pur- 
poses, they had to be honest and kind. The poor who 
didn't have the money to use had to imitate their honesty 
and virtue. Nowadays the man who stands at the top 
of society is the one who is richest, no matter how he 
got his riches or how he spends them ; now the rich 
spend their money, making a gaudy and foolish show, 
these are the patterns for the people. 

" Hence every bod}^ is in debt, everybody is gambling 
to get rich, for if you are not rich you are nobody. If 
these are the fruits of your new religion, I don't want 
anything to do with them; I don't want to worship 
strange gods, who send such curses upon the people for 
blessings. With my religion, the little I have is enough 
for me, with something to spare for those who are poorer 
than I am. With these new religions those who have 
the most are most eager to get more ; they tear down 
their barns and build greater ; they say to themselves, 
' Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; eat, 
drink, and be merry.' But then the dread summons comes, 
' Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.' 
How hard it is for them to go who have so much to leave 
behind ; for them who have laid up their treasures in 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 135 

heaven it is easy to go. For he who cannot lie hath 
said, * In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to 
prepare a place for you; that where I am there ye may 
be also.' " 

I used to laugh at these sim})le, old-fashioned notions 
of Aunt Dorothy ; but in my distress I thought of them. 
I knew I could find shelter in her house. I found indeed 
a kind welcome and much sympathy for my misfortune. 
When I retired that evening I found a Bible lying on my 
toilette. When I opened it this passage struck my eye : 
" The way of transgressors is hard." Then did I under- 
stand the cause of all our troubles. We had followed a 
Pharisaical priesthood, and the cunningly devised words 
of men's wisdom, instead of the word of God. The word 
of God teaches as plainly as anything can that a woman's 
proper place is to serve and obey man ; the curse was, — 
Thy desire shall be unto man, and " he shall rule over 
thee." The apostle's commandment to the Christian wife 
is, — -Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands, for 
they are your head even as Christ is the head of the 
church. 

But common sense teaches us that man is physically, 
intellectually, and morally our superior. This truth is 
patent, so self-evident that it has never been called in 
question except by infidelity. For six thousand 3'ears 
the devil has been busy, trying to destroy the peace and 
happiness of mankind ; every expedient his diabolical 
ingenuity could invent has been tried. But, amid all the 
vicissitudes of fortune which have attended man through 
these long and" sorrowful years, the devil has never found 
him so utterly debased and degraded before, as to be able 
to persuade him to entertain a proposition so clearly and 
unmistakably at war with his happiness. The most 
ignorant barbarians with the lowest notions of God and 
his truth, and the poorest systems of belief, are too wise 
to be cheated by a fraud so palpable. 

'Tis only in infidelity, wrapped in the mantle of conceit, 
infidelity, babbling ignorantly about human reason, pro- 
gress and reform, the nineteenth century, and such other 
miserable twaddle, — 'tis only in infidelity the devil has 
found a dupe weak and ignorant enough to accept this 



-136 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

bare-faced lie. It imposes on nobody else, not even 
on children. In their idle gambols and childish sports 
thej reject it. The little boy, though a year younger 
than his little sister, asserts and maintains his natural 
superiority ; where she pauses and trembles in their 
childish adventures, he moves boldly and steadily on ; 
they quarrel, he will not come her way. She can't pull 
him, for he has twice her strength ; she can't bend that 
masculine will, — it despises her threats, her taunts ; she 
knows she's right, and yet she can't prevail. She feels 
her weakness, her voice lowered to its softest key trem- 
bles it out. And then, strange to tell, tiu'ough the tear 
which steals to her eye, as if to veil the disgrace of his 
defeat, she sees him quail, — she sees him bend. She feels 
the warm grasp of his hand, she triumphs. truth, how 
wonderful are thy untold mysteries 1 Even thy weakness 
is strength ; even thy weakness is mightier than the 
strength of an infidel philosophy. Poor human reason, 
what pitiable exhibitions dost thou make of thyself! cut 
loose from the Author of thy being, the bond of faith 
which binds thee to Heaven broken, what art thou ? 

"A friendless slave, a child without a sire, 
Whose mortal life and momentary fire 
Light to the grave his chance-created form, 
As ocean wrecks illuminate the storm : 
And when the gun's tremendous flash is o'er, 
To night and silence sinks forever more." 

Once only in his just anger did the Almighty give thee 
up to thyself; once only did he take away from thee the 
ten thousand invisible restraints which Beld thee back, 
even when thou wast unconscious of them ; once only 
did he permit thee to take unlimited power, and rule 
absolutely. And well has the Christian world agreed 
with one consent to call that brief reign " the Reign of 
Terror." Invested with supreme command, with all the 
vigor of youth, with all the power of logic, of eloquence, 
of learning, of philosophy, to aid thee, thou couldst move 
only one of the many springs of government, and that 
was the spring of the guillotine, — to cut oflf the heads of 
thy enemies first, and of thy friends afterwards. ^ 

Not strong drink, not wine nor brandy, only human 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 137 

blood, can slake the thirst of thy drunken debauch. Truth 
gone, friendship gone, faith gone, man sees falsehood, 
fiend, written on the face of his fellow-man; he trembles 
to take the hand of proffered friendship, and when he 
turns away a cold chill runs down his back to meet the 
expected dagger ; every human soul is tortured" on the 
rack of suspense; a vile strumpet is lifted to the chair of 
state, and the revellers at reason's bacchanalian dance 
worship ber as a goddess. But even revenge can drink 
blood to excess : stupefaction comes on ; neither the cries 
of their victims, nor the gurgling stream gushing from the 
headless corpses, excites a pleasurable emotion. Little 
children are seized and dashed into the river; a hellish 
grin plays on the face of these brutish fiends, as the 
drowning cry of their infant victims, mingling wMth the 
surge of waters, greets their ears. God of the Bible, 
God of the Christian, God of our fathers, deliver us, 
deliver our country from the rule of this merciless 
tyrant ! 

But the people say there is no danger. No danger? 
For many a people that siren sentence has sung the re- 
quiem of their liberties. Let the people look around 
them for one moment, and see what is going on, and then 
say there is no danger. Let them look at the present 
condition of their government, and then say there is no 
danger. The chief executive office, once filled by a 
Washington and a Jackson, abolished by legislative re- 
strictions! the drunken tailor who disgraces it having 
permitted a foul gang of usurpers to strip it of every 
prerogative with which it was invested to protect the 
States, to guard the liberties of the people, and to see 
that no harm befalls the republic. The power of the 
supreme judiciary paralyzed by the same jacobin con- 
spirators, and by the servile complacency of its high 
officers, the chief of whom, in expectation of a high 
position of place and plunder from the jacobins, has re- 
fused to publish decisions for fear it would damage his 
prospects of personal preferment and political aggran- 
dizement. The popular branch of the national Congress 
seized and controlled by a trio of political scoundrels, 
whose social life and moral character is a disgrace, — not 

12* 



138 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

to the nineteenth century, for it is nothing but a deceitful 
glare of infidel philosophy; not to the genius of civiliza- 
tion, for it is nothing but the pompous show and glitter- 
ing splendor of the golden gods which men worship, — 
but to a people who profess the Christian religion, a 
religion which teaches the highest morality and the 
purest virtue ever revealed to mankind. 

The chief of this villainous triple copartnership is our 
modern Cyclops, '' Mon strum horrendum" — a horrid 
monster, without shape, of huge proportions, and blind 
in one eye, — one of those creatures whom nature has 
disowned, and permitted beastliness to be written on his 
face, — a dastard and a coward, who spent his time as a 
soldier marauding and plundering, defrauding his gov- 
ernment of captured property, oppressing and plundering 
people whom other soldiers had conquered, even to their 
spoons, and insulting defenseless women. 

Another, a cold-blooded, cold-hearted lawyer, familiar 
with all the low tricks and petty chicaneries which dis- 
grace that profession. He stands convicted as the hire- 
ling murderer of an innocent woman. 

But how shall I speak of the third, the M^orst and 
strongest of the conspirators? — that hulk of beastliness, 
that living sore, that personified leprosy, which creeps 
about the earth, poisoning everything its slime touches. 
Lechery and licentiousness have taken possession of his 
body, and a broken gall pours over his perverted mind a 
black stream of revengeful hate. So debauched has his 
physical being become th^t only the foul, rank stench of 
a negro wench can move its passions; so blunted has his 
mo.ral sense become that he has not hesitated to blas- 
pheme Heaven by speaking of heaven's Prince — of him 
who thought it not robbery to be equal with God — " as a 
single individual." 

Such are the usurpers who rule that body, for the rest 
of the ruling faction, representatives of the people, so 
called, do but open their mouths, catch the spittle of these 
filthy tyrants, and sputter it over a degraded and insulled 
people. Such are the rulers of that body, which was 
once ruled by the 'winning eloquence of a Clay, the 
sublime oratory of a Webster, and the convincing logic 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 139 

of a Calhoun. Such are the masters of a people whose 
servants those uoble men once were proud to be. Oh, 
could we but see those times again, when great and good 
men were proud to be the servants of the great democ- 
racy of the western world ! the terror of kings and aris- 
tocracies, who were trampling the rest of the world under 
their feet, and an asylum for the friendless children of 
earth ! 

Then it was a matter of pleasure and of pride to attend 
the meetings of the national Congress; to witness the 
contest between intellectual giants struggling, not for 
place, not for factions, not for plunder, but for the preser- 
vation of the liberty, the religion, the justice, the truth, 
which they had received from their fathers. There you 
migiit see the chivalrous knight of Roanoke, proud, cold, 
intellectual; and yet hiding under that cold exterior an 
ardent love for his native State, and a love of liberty 
stronger than his love of life. You might see him come 
forth to the combat, his quiver hung carelessly about 
him, filled with the arrows of pointed wit, bitter invective, 
burning satire, and a scorn which shivered like the thun- 
derbolt. How the flunkeys, placemen, parvenues, lobby- 
agents of moneyed monopolies, and dirty spies of politi- 
cal factions, shrank from the pointed finger of his ridicule, 
and writhed under the lashings of his patriotic indigna- 
tion ! There, too, you might see coming forth to meet 
him, in the fair discussion of the legitimate questions of 
political reform, the great tribune of the people, the sage 
of Ashland, equally proud, equally imperious, but more 
congenial and affable, equally ardent in his love of liberty 
and in his devotion to the welfare of his country and the 
happiness of the people. He, too, wields mighty weapons 
of combat, — the magic arrow" of persuasion, the gleaming 
sword of eloquence, and the great broadaxe of lofty, im- 
passioned declamation. 

There, too, you might see the great defender of the 
Constitution pouring forth a stream of splendid oratory, 
broad, deep, pure, pellucid. Like a mighty flood, and as 
grand as the Falls of Niagara, it comes thundering down 
upon the rock-built logic of the great defender of State 
rights — that solid column of logic standing amid the 



140 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

dashing flood and boiling foam — like an Egyptian pyra- 
mid in the sweeping surge of a thousand years. How 
did the eye of its great builder flash with prophetic fire 
when, kindled by the inspiration of a holy patriotism, it 
looked down the future to this accursed day, and saw 
bis native State, which he loved with a father's love, a 
wretched dependency ruled by the military satraps of a 
consolidated despotism! 

Patriot sages, are you dead ? or do you still live? Do 
you, like the genii of good, still hover around your 
country? Oh, breathe upon your degenerate sons the 
breath of fire which once kindled in their fathers an un- 
dying love of truth, of virtue, of liberty, and country I 
Oh, breathe upon them, that their souls may wake up 
and break the shackles that bind them 1 

Can it be that such children had such sires? Can the 
children of such sires become, willingly, the tools of 
despicable factions, whose only purpose is to plunder ? 
the dupes of a hireling priesthood, who are willing to 
cheat men out of heaven for the sake of a lucrative em- 
ployment ? the slaves of an upstart aristocracy, who riot 
in licentious excess, while the toiling millions lack the 
comforts of life? Shades of the mighty dead, if you 
can yet assume a visible shape, and walk upon the earth, 
haunt the conspirators who are plotting their country's 
ruin, and "push them from their stools." 

Experimental philosophy may be a good thing to de- 
termine the relations which difterent kinds of matter bear 
to each other; but to use it to determine the relations 
subsisting between God and man, and between man and 
man, is a crime for which there can be no excuse and no 
palliation. It puts to hazard the eternal happiness of 
the human soul, and that, too, without a particle of 
necessity for it. Those relations have been so firmly 
fixed and so clearly defined by revelation, that only the 
willfully ignorant can misapprehend them. Human 
wisdom and human philosophy are a falsehood and a 
cheat, — the miserable nostrums of quacks, which poison 
thousands and cure nobody. They have never discovered 
one single fact in morals. Cain tried it when he mur- 
dered Abel, and the devil has kept innumerable agents at 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 141 

work at it ever since. The result has always been the 
same. An angry God says always to the guilty perpe- 
trator of these infamous deeds, "Thy brother's blood 
cries out to me from the ground," and fixes the mark of 
his eternal displeasure upon the brow. 

I have tried it, and only the grave can hide my shame. 

Only in the deep, silent sleep of death can I forget mj 
woe. If a false-hearted man can feel the pangs of re- 
morse, and if they may be in proportion to his guilt, 
what spectres of murdered innocence must haunt the 
guilty conscience of the preacher who deceived me, and 
the husband who deserted me ? My husband sued for 
a divorce, which he easily obtained, he being required to 
pay me a small annuity. Shortly afterwards, he was 
married to a daughter of the hypocritical Pharisee whose 
lies had broken the peace of a once happy family and 
blasted its hope forever. 

Equality and suffrage for women ! Nothing more 
clearly shows the utter demoralization of the times than 
this infamous proposition. Such a thing is both blas- 
phemy against God and an insult to the nobler and 
better instincts of human nature. Divested of all its 
sophistry, the idea is revolting to every manly feeling, 
and to every sentiment of modest propriety in the bosom 
of woman. Man, made in the image of God ; man, 
whom the Creator of the universe has called his son ; 
man, whom the Almighty has invested with power and 
authority to rule the earth and everything which lives 
upon it ; man, who, when honest and upright, has been 
justly styled the noblest work of God ; man, deluded by 
the devil, cheated by a hireling priesthood, and enslaved 
by an upstart bondocracy, makes this proposition to 
woman : " We will make you our equals, we will endow 
you with all the civil and political privileges which we 
enjoy, upon these conditions : that you release us from 
the obligations imposed upon us by nature and nature's 
God, to shield your beauty, to guard your virtue, and 
defend your frailty." 

Woman, the creature of passion and emotion ; woman, 
so strong in passion, so weak in physical strength ; 
woman, so strong in love, so weak and erratic in judg- 



14-2 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

ment ; woman, so trusting, so confiding; woman, wbo 
twines about man like the ivy, putting fortli a tliousand 
tendrils of beauty, of gentleness, of patience, of faith, 
of love, clinging closer to him when the storms of life 
beat darkly round him, but who, when she has nothing 
to cling to, falls, and oh, how low ! — beyond the reach of 
mercy, and out of sight of hope ! woman to take care of 
herself ! 

And why not children, too? Since man wants to be 
free from all responsibility to his kind, why not give 
equality and suflfrage to children too, and let them take 
care of themselves ? 'Tis true their little minds can 
hardly yet comprehend a game of marbles ; but let them 
vote once, and immediately this magical operation would 
enable them to comprehend the game of life, with all 
its villainies, its oppressions, its crimes, and its follies. 
Let them vote, and at once their little hands would 
grow strong to bear the burdens of debt, of taxation, 
of oppression, and of wrong which I see men sinking 
under. 

Woman, so delicate, so frail, and yet so strong in the 
very frailty of her beauty, to be dragged into the streets 
to fisticuff' with the rabble rout who follow the heels of 
political demagogues! Woman, the most beautiful flower 
which blooms in the garden of life, to be transplanted to 
the slough of political filth I Why don't you plant your 
flowers out in the fields instead of in the gardens ? Be- 
cause they need more careful attention ; they are not so 
hardy as other plants ; they would be bruised and 
broken ; they would perish. And yet woman, the pret- 
tiest of all flowers to an honest, upright man, is to be 
taken out of the family garden, where she blooms so 
beautifully, and transplanted into the broad field of the 
world. 

Our country once had men, — the Washingtons, 
Adamses, Henrys, Jeffersons, Hamiltons, Franklins, and 
their noble compatriots, — men who were justly the pride 
of their country and the admiration of the world ; men 
who had the talent and heroism to defend their country 
from the rule of the British aristocracy ; men who had 
the wisdom, the virtue, and ability to organize, and put 



THE 111 nib WITNESS. 143 

into operation, the most liberal and beneficent government 
the world ever saw. These ^reat and good men never 
thought of offering so base a proposition to their wives, 
their mothers, and their daughters. No, no; their strong 
arms and brave hearts were better security for the rights 
of woman than this plaything called suffrage. By their 
fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather figs of thistles, 
or grapes of thorns ? Family quarrels, so frequent now- 
adays, were scarcely heard of then. Divorces, which, 
under this new religion, have become almost as common 
as marriages, were of the rarest occurrence. Abortions 
and child-murders, which seem to be a mere pastime with 
women who live where that damning heresy was born, 
were unknown then. The cities of the country were not 
then, as now, licensed whore-houses. The pretty daugh- 
ters of the poor were not compelled to fly for refuge to 
those conventicles of hell over whose door is written, 
"She who enters here leaves hope behind." 

The glory of offering these privileges (so called) to 
woman belongs exclusively to the would-be philosophers 
of this generation. Men make us this offer who have 
lacked the courage to take care of themselves, men who 
have become the willing dupes of a lying priesthood, 
the menial tools of political factions and political dema- 
gogues, and pack-mules to carry the vast burdens of debt 
and taxation imposed on them by an upstart bondautoc- 
racy, — men who were brought up like horses, or driven, 
like the serfs of kings, to the battle-field, to toil, to suffer, 
to bleed, to die. 

'Tis true this was done in the name of liberty, a great 
crusade against slavery; but their condition was such 
that their masters, the bondautocracy, could buy them, 
and that for less money than the negro slaves were 
selling for, whom they went to liberate. The war is 
over. They have come back home, — not all, either. 
Thousands and tens of thousands died on the battle- 
fields ; other thousands and tens of thousands died of 
disease and neglect; tens of thousands died too in prison- 
pens. Their enemies, whom they had been taught to 
hate and to curse as slave-dealers and soul-drivers, with 
higher notions of humanity, did not want to send prisoa- 



144 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

ers to those horrid pens to die of lice, of filth, of starva- 
tion ; but their political' masters, in the name of freedom 
and humanity, compelled them to go. Those of them 
who survived all these woes have come back home to 
toil and sweat, and their children after them, to pay back 
the raone}' which the bondautocracy lent the government 
to buy the deaths of their husbands and fathers. 

Oh, brave and magnanimous men of the North! Is 
this the freedom, are these the privileges, you offer your 
women? Is it because you are deaf and can't hear the 
clank of your chains ? Is it because you are blind and 
can't see your degradation? Is it because use has ren- 
dered you insensible to the galling yoke of servitude? 
Or is it because, in the meanness of your souls, rather 
than strike down, with patriotic hands, your oppressors, 
you would seek to release yourselves by shifting upon 
your mothers and sisters, your wives and daughters, a 
part of your insupportable burdens? 

As a woman, whose bitter wrongs may give power to 
her speech, whose mournful experience may give pathos 
to her eloquence, let me beseech you not to do it. Oh, 
no! Do not try to make men out of your women, for of 
such men there are already enough. And then too, if 
men must needs be slaves, they will want a mother's 
affection, a sister's gentle kindness, and a wife's love and 
service and patience and fidelity, to bear them up in their 
hopeless toil. Ay, they will need, too, to soothe the 
anguish of their souls, tears of sympathy such as only a 
wife and a mother can weep. 

The laboring people of the country, — its bone and 
sinew, called by the new political masters "poor white 
trash," gave their arms, their legs, their eyes, their teeth, 
their labor, and their lives to the war. Was not that 
their share? Ought not the rich to have given their 
money ? They stayed at home eating, drinking, and 
making merry. Their sons, too, — except such as were 
quartermasters, commissaries, swindling contractors, and 
substitute buyers, — stayed at home with their mothers 
and wives and children, while the sons of the laboring 
people were suffering all the privations, the perils, and 
hardships of the battle-field, and their mothers and wives 



rilK TUIliD WITXE'SS. 145 

and children were weepiiijir and toiling- and sweatin^f 
alone. If patriotism required such sacrifices from the 
laboring peojjle, miu:bt she not demand from the rich, 
whom it seems she exempted from these painful duties, 
money enough to pay the expenses? If the laborers 
srave their service and their blood, ought not the rich, in 
justice, to have given their money ? 

Oh, no! The bondautocracy only lent their money, — ay, 
lent to the government shin-plasters, paper money, worth 
half price, and that must be paid back in gold. cupidity, 
how insatiable is thy greed I Well did the Saviour say, 
it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle 
than for a rich man to go to heaven. So is it easier for 
a traitor to love his country than a bondholder. 

But if they don't make good patriots, they surely do 
make good tyrants. They have forced on their country, — 
once so free and happy, once the refuge of the oppressed, 
once the fostering mother of labor, giving to the toiling 
millions the fruit of their industry; once the asylum of 
the persecuted Christian, where he might worship God 
under his own vine and fig-tree, and according to the dic- 
tates of his own conscience ; once the hope of the young 
man, holding out to him the promise of successful busi- 
ness and many years of domestic peace and social happi- 
ness ; once the school of childhood, setting before it the 
noblest examples of virtue, of Christian benevolence, and 
devoted patriotism, — I say, this mammon, this money- 
ETod, has forced on the countr}^ a debt as large as that of 
Russia, and a system of taxation more galling and op- 
pressive. It has reduced to miserable dependencies, 
governed by military satraps, States which were among 
the oldest, the proudest, and noblest of the federal gov- 
ernment. Ay, more, it has subjugated these brave and 
generous people, our brothers and kindred, to the rule of 
a half-civilized race of barbarians, and these same savages 
are instigated to every act of oppression and insult by 
its hireling tools, the carpet-bag spies. 

Xever upon any people has such a stream of filth been 
poured as these carpet-baggers are. They are the filthy 
matter which runs from the sores of a leprous political 
bodv, the puke of pharisaism, sick of the black vomit. 
"g 13 



146 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

What a grateful return is this to children whose fathers 
helped our fathers to storm the citadel of British aristoc- 
ratic tyranny, and to plant the flag of freedom on its 
ruins, to States which gave to liberty the Washingtons, 
the Jeflfersons, and a host of other illustrious men whose 
talents contributed so largely in building the great con- 
stitutional defenses of our freedom I 

This money-god has bought the legislative depart- 
ments of the government, both State and national, the 
executive and judicial departments, the political factions, 
and the churches, with all their vast power for good or 
evil. In a word, it has taken possession of, either by 
force or fraud, and subsidized to its vile uses, every lever 
of political power, every spring in the vast machinery of 
social life, and every motive of moral suasion. 

On the ruins of the American democracy it has built 
up a splendid despotism, and denounces as traitor every- 
body who refuses to subscribe to its usurpations and, 
crimes. On the ruins of the Bible Christianity, with all 
of its benevolence and charity and peace and love, it 
has built a vast and splendid ecclesiastical power to daz- 
zle the eyes of its insane worshipers. On the ruins of 
social virtue, so chaste, so pure, so beautiful, when im- 
bued with the spirit of Cliristianity, it has built splendid 
whore-houses to seduce the young and thus pollute the 
very fountain of life. It casts upon the human soul the 
glitter of its pomp and splendor, and that soul is parched 
and shriveled. Its false glare falls on the human heart,^ 
and the fountains of its affections are dried up. Its fitful, 
flickering flashes dazzle the eyes of men, and they go 
blundering through the dark, their footsteps trembling 
with uncertainty. Doubt hangs like a veil over their 
faces, and dreadful apprehensions of evil, like a flock of 
ill-omened birds, flap their foul w-ings about their heads. 

Such are the proud triumphs of this mammon, — this 
money-god and its idol worshipers, the priest, the politi- 
cian, and the bondautocrat. What a feast for these 
idolaters, to be sure! How they exult in their success I 
how they revel in luxury and dissipation ! how they 
flaunt their gilded trinkets and gaudy Hnery in the faces 
of their fawning dupes and meuiul tools ! And yet these 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 14t 

servile creatures, their tongues still black with their boot- 
licking, impudenth" prate about freedom and suffrage. 
They vote, the}^ choose. Have they indeed chosen all 
jthese crimes and follies, all this infamy and degradation? 
Or have they, duped by a canting priesthood and political 
factions, only been used as tools to work their own ruin? 

What excellent privileges these are, to be sure!. No 
wonder men appreciate them so highly ; no wonder they 
are so anxious to extend them to everybody, to those who 
want them and those who don't. If the men who boast 
they have destroj'ed aristocracy and slavery in the South 
had the courage to destroy bondautocracy and slavery 
in the North, their wives and daughters would have no 
need of suffrage to protect themselves. Such men would 
be brave and honorable, and woman is always safe in the 
care of honorable men. But no wonder woman feels in- 
secure, when she has to look for protection to men who 
are the dupes of a hireling priesthood, the tools of po- 
litical factions, and the pack-mules of an upstart bond- 
autocracy. 

But do these men who prate so much about freedom 
and manhood suffrage really vote ? Have they ever voted 
in their lives ? Before our unfortunate family troubles, I 
attended political meetings. I found out that manhood 
suffrage, equality and woman's rights were only play- 
things invented by politicians and priests to make fools 
of women and slaves of men. I found out that one or 
two persons — politicians or priests — controlled the whole 
thing. These parties, in the name of religion or loyalty, 
would come with resolutions fixed up for the occasion. 
They were generally prepared in such a way as to have 
no particular or detinite meaning. For then everybody 
could put his own construction on them, and, of course, 
everybody would be pleased. If they did have any 
meaning at all, it was generally hid under a rigmarole 
of big words, in order that nobody might understand them 
but themselves. These priests and politicians, after writ- 
ing out the resolutions, would hand them over to their 
masters the bondautocrats, to be revised and corrected, 
and then they would submit them to the people to be 
ratified. 



148 THE GREAT TRTAL. \ 

I have often wondered why the people did not hold 
meetings of their own, especially those classes who have 
so long borne the heat and burden of the day, the half- 
paid mechanic, the half-paid clerk, the half-paid tiller of 
the soil, and indeed the laborer of every class, who have 
so long seen the fruits of their own toil go to bolster up 
a vast political tyranny, miscalled government; to sup- 
port a vast ecclesiastical despotism, miscalled the church ; 
and to pay for the gaudy show and licentious dissipation 
of an upstart nobilit}', called the bondautocracy. 

Suppose the young men of all classes, whose souls 
have not been parched and shriveled by the glare of gold, 
would meet with them ; suppose when their old task- 
masters, the preachers and politicians, would come to 
dictate to them, they would catch them by the neck and 
heels and cast them into the streets and highways ; sup- 
pose they would honestly and truthfully inquire into such 
matters as these : why the free-born people of America 
should have a governmeut as expensive as that of Russia ? 
why the United States so called, — pinned together by 
bayonets- — should have a public debt as large as that hate- 
ful despotism ? why, in the name of freedom, the political 
power of this government should be enlarged for the ex- 
j^ress purpose of giving to politicians a new lease of 
power, and to the bondautocracy exclusive privileges? 
why those despotic principles which have destroyed all 
free governments in every age and country, and which are 
this day trampling under foot the rights and liberties of 
millions of European slaves, should be incorporated into 
our system ? 

Did not our fathers fly from all these wrongs and op- 
pressions into this country, then a wilderness ? Were 
they not so anxious to escape them that they lost sight 
of all the hardships, the toils and privations, which awaited 
them here? Did they not prefer to take the risk of the 
Indian tomahawk and scalping-knife rather than stay at 
home, and be the subjects of kings and the serfs of a 
nobility ? Did they not establish for the benefit of the 
people at large a government for themselves ? Was it 
not so constructed as to secure the liberties and rights of 
all, and not to extend special privileges to a few classes ? 



THE THIED WITNESS. ' ^4J 

Was not this tbe fundamental idea of that government, 
that its officers should be the servants, and not the mas- 
ters, of the people? Did they not, in order to secure 
those privileges, — the liberty and security of all, — build 
around them great constitutional bulwarks of defense ? 
Did they not do this because they feared the servants of 
the people, led on by ambition and love of power, would 
try to become the people's masters ? Was not this the 
case with all other governments in the world ? Do not 
tlie kings and aristocracies of Europe use the great masses 
of tbe people, even in this wise and enlightened age, so 
called, as toys to amuse themselves with, or as beasts 
of burden, to carry their caprices, their follies, and their 
crimes ? 

Has not the government built by our fathers been radi- 
cally and essentially changed ? Does it not now claim 
to be a power to rule the people, instead of a servant to 
work for them ? Did not that arch-traitor to the genius 
of American liberty, who has been the brains of two 
national administrations, boast that he wielded a power 
more absolute than any tyrant in Europe? Did not this 
base fraud, this personified lie, this double-dealer, this 
equivocator, this Satan's premier, who can no more tell 
a truth without mixing falsehood with it than a drunkard 
can drink water without mixing whisky with it, boast 
that he could ring his little bell and have a citizen of the 
American republic, whether he lived in Chicago or New 
Orleans, arrested and thrown into a dungeon without 
atrial? Is this what freedom means in the Christian 
republic of America ? 

Would not such a boast have cost Caesar his crown, if 
not his head, in heathen Rome ? Is this the progress of 
modern philosophy ? Does not the faction which is 
ruling this countrj^ — to-day a nation of slaves — boast 
that they are acting outside of the Constitution, and 
without any regard to its restrictions and limitations 
upon their power? Have they not multiplied the powers 
of the government, in order that they may use its whole 
vast machinery to extend and perpetuate their powder? 
Have they introduced a single measure or passed a single 
bill designed to promote the happiness and welfare of the 

13* 



J^0 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

people at large ? Has not the whole drift of their legisla- 
tion been for the exclusive benefit of the bondautoeracy, the 
financial and commercial gamblers, the rich owners of 
manufacturing establishments and large whisky distil- 
t'lleries ? Has it not been decided by the courts of jus- 
tice, so called, that this privileged class, the bondautoeracy, 
may legitimately employ men and money to persuade the 
State and national legislatures to pass laws for their ex- 
clusive benefit ? Do not the people at large have to pay 
for these gigantic frauds ? Do they not pay their political 
masters well for their time, which they spend in distilling 
the sweat of the laborer into delicious wines, to please 
fhe fastidious taste of a pampered aristocracy ? 

Has not this faction spent its whole time legislating 
about the negro ? Can it be presumed that this faction, 
which has utterly ignored the white man, can have any 
honest and sincere desire to promote the happiness of the 
negro ? Is it reasonable to suppose that they will rob 
the laboring white man, their brother, their own kith and 
kin, and not rob the negro ? Does not this proposition 
wear falsehood on its very face ? Is it not perfectly ap- 
parent to every mind, not blinded by prejudice or per- 
verted by anger, that this faction has been using every 
possible means to make a great political power out of the 
negro for the purpose of making a slave out of the white 
man ? 

Has not this faction virtually abolished the office of 
President? Has not its present incumbent'' permitted 
them to strip it of all the power and authority with which 
it was invested, — power not to destroy but to protect the 
rights of the States and the liberties of the people ? Is 
he anything more than a weather-cock in the hands of 
the jacobins, to tell which way the popular breeze is 
blowing? Is he anything more than a drunken babbler? 
Has he not written as many messages almost as all his 
predecessors? Did he not tell the rump in his first mes- 
: age to the present session that they had taken from him 
learly all the power which belonged to his official posi- 
tion ? Did he not tell them if anything in the shape of 

* Andrew Johnson. 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 151 

ofiBcial power was left, tbey might take that too ? Did he 
not say that the only instance in which he would oppose 
their usurpations, would be an attempt- to turn him out 
of the White House ? 

Has it come to this, that the President of the United 
States is paid twenty-five thousand dollars a year merely 
to be a tenant of the White House, merely to occupy it 
and to air it, and keep it clean ? Need he have stayed 
on that account alone ? Was not Mrs. Wade ready and 
waiting to do that very thing? Had she not selected her 
servants to do the work, and her special company out of 
the first circles, so called (butchers' wives, I guess), to 
grace its parlors? Does not this low-flung demagogue 
and weak-minded politician know that when his office 
was stripped of the power and authority with which it 
was invested by the Constitution, it was virtually abol- 
ished ? Does he not know that these high prerogatives 
were not his to surrender ? Does he not know that 
in surrendering them he violated his oath of office and 
committed treason against the people ? Does he not 
know that if he had been tried for this offense, he would 
have been found guilty and condemned ? Did not the 
jacobins put him on his trial for resisting their usurpa- 
tions? Did he not prove, even to their satisfaction,, that 
his obsequious servility was unimpeachable? Did not 
even his friends blush when they read the Hancock mes- 
sage ? Have the people ever seen the pictures which a 
genuine artist painted of that disgraceful affair? I wish 
I had one to show it. 

A great big man, the chief executive magistrate of 
the United States of America and the commander-in- 
chief of its armies and navies, gets frightened at the 
noise of the rump ; he runs to a dark corner, and hides 
himself behind a screen, — perhaps the flimsy threat of 
some former message, or the child's promise to stay hid, 
if the rump will only let him. He is scared so you can 
hear his heart beat, you can see the sweat soaking through 
the screen. In the mean time, a little bit of a fellow comes 
along, — a lieutenant of this big commander, and ruler of 
some distant, petty province. The rump orders him 
to execute one of their late decrees against the people of 



152 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

his proviuce. He flatly refuses to do it; his words have 
the ring of the true metal. He tells them plainly he is 
an American freeman, a citizen of the great republic, and 
they must get somebody else to execute their inhuman 
and bloody decrees. The big man hears these brave 
words in his hiding-place; his heart quits thumping; he 
catches his breath, nnd wipes the sweat from his brovf. 
He lifts his head above the screen quickly, — for this is 
his first chance, and it may be his last, — puts his thumb 
on his nose, twirls his fingers at the rump, and bawls 
out at the top of his voice, " Ah, ha, if I am afraid of 
you, here is a little fellow that is not. Bully for you, 
my little man ! Stand up to 'em ; don't be afeard of 'era, 
if I am." 

Is not this a true picture of one of those poor men 
whom the people delight to honor, because he has become 
great, so called? Is he really great? Can you not as 
easilv make a big man out of a little one by bundling 
him up in a heap of clothes, as you can make a states- 
man out of a small politician by wrapping him up in the 
great robes of a big oflSce ? Is not Andy Johnson the 
same small politician he always was? Has he not lifted 
himself by demagogism and chicanery to a position so 
high. above his merits, that it makes his head swim? Is 
it the duty of the people to honor men who have got 
above them, so called, by demagogism or theft, by acci- 
dent or fraud, aud to give them positions of influence 
which they are Dot fit for, simply because they were once 
poor ? 

Is not Andy Johnson the same artful, petty demagogue 
he was when a cross-road politician in Tennessee? Did 
he not meet, with a bland smile and flattering words, the 
delegates from the different working-men's associations? 
Did he not express great sympathy for them, because he 
himself was once a mechanic? Did he not speak very 
favorably of the eight-hour system? Did he not know 
that this eight-hour system is only another one of those 
pretty playthings which the political tools of the bondau- 
tocrats have invented to amuse the laboring classes, while 
they rob them of their real rights and of the fruits of 
their toil? Does not he know that the laboring people 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 153 

of "The best government the world ever saw," so called, 
work twelve hours every day (some of them poor seam- 
stresses, in the name of humanity and woman's rights, 
half the night besides) ? Does not he know that they 
only get paid for nine hours, and that three of the nine 
are appropriated to that great national blessing, the 
national debt? Does not he know that if they only 
worked eight hours, their taskmasters — the preacher, the 
politician, and the bondautocrat — would only pay them 
for four? Does not he know that six hours' work is not 
sufficient to supply their families with the necessaries of 
life? Does not he know that pay for four hours' work 
would bring poverty and want to their very doors? Is 
not the secretary of the treasury in the cabinet of this 
"people's man," so called, using all his talents and energy 
to bring back the currency to a gold basis ? Don't this 
secretary and his master know that reducing the currency 
to a gold basis means the reduction of the price of labor 
thirty per cent. ? Don't they know that the bondauto- 
cracy, who have all the gold in their possession,- are not 
going to suffer it to come down thirty per cent, until 
they can buy labor thirty per cent, cheaper ? 

Don't all of these petty upstarts, who are idolized by the 
people because they were tailors or rail-splitters or wood- 
haulers, abandon the people as soon as they get a little 
above them ? Don't they go over to the bondautocracy, 
and become their most pliant tools and servile agents ? 
They make the most serviceable agents, because they 
have once been laborers themselves, and are supposed to 
have some sympathy for that class. How kindly they 
talk to the people ! How much sympathy they express 
for them ! But when they come to act, to carry out cer- 
tain measures of governmental policy, how certain are 
these measures to be for the interest of their masters, — 
the bondautocrac}^ ! 

Have not the people been flattered and cajoled and 
humbugged long enough ? Ought there not, Ln the name 
of decency, to be some limit to this thing? Have ihey 
not been fed on the false promises of political thieves and 
hireling priests long enough ? Whilst their masters used 
them to be exhibited at election shows merely for their 



154 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

amusement, it might be borne ; but when they prepare 
to use them to suffer and bleed and die in carrying on 
bloody wars, and, after the wars are over, to toil and 
sweat to pay the expenses, is it not too much ? They 
use them to liberate half-civilized barbarians, and then 
use these ignorant slaves, whom they have set free, as a 
political power to make slaves of white men. Ay, more : 
in order to make their white slaves more obedient and 
tractable, they propose to infuse a little negro blood into 
their veins. 

In order to facilitate this work, the children of both 
races of slaves are to be gathered together in those 
detestable herd-pens called free schools. Filthy and de- 
bauched priests, who have become skilled in all the arts 
of seduction by tampering with the wives and daughters 
of their dupes, are to superintend this mingling and 
mixing, — this ringing, streaking, and striping. Free 
schools I Why, they are institutions gotten up expressly 
for the people ; they are public blessings. Perhaps they 
are, in the despotic governments of Europe, whence they 
were imported ; perhaps it is a special privilege for the 
serfs of royalty and aristocracy to be permitted to learn 
to read and write. They who eat their oaten bread and 
cold potatoes — ay, breathe the very air of heaven by 
the permission of kingcraft and priestcraft — may accept 
it as a boon to have the chance to learn the rudiments of 
their language. But must the freemen of America 
accept as a privilege the boon which tyrants grant to 
their serfs? Are they so poor that they consider the 
crumbs which fall from the tables of kings to their serfs 
a feast ? 

Nay, if the laboring people of this country were free, 
as they claim to be, — if they were justly paid for their 
toil, as they ought to be, — if one-fourth of the fruits of 
their labor were not extorted from them to pay for an ex- 
travagant and licentious usurpation, miscalled govern- 
ment, — and another fourth wheedled out of them by the 
artful tricks of priestcraft, to be offered as sacrifices upon 
the altars of gorgeous temples, which pharisaism has 
built for them to worship, instead of that God who made 
them, and in whose hands their breath is, — I say, if they 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 155 

were not thus robbed and plundered, they would be able 
to educate their children respectably; they would not be 
compelled to send them to miserable herd-pens, to have 
their minds perverted and their morals debauched by the 
hireling tools of political factious and the creatures of 
an infidel pharisaism. 

I repeat it : these free schools may be good institutions 
in the despotic governments of Europe, where man is 
considered as belonging to the state, and where the state 
means the usurper called king and his rich bondauto- 
cratic accomplices, — miscalled the nobility, — who lord it 
over their fellow-men. In these countries it is under- 
stood that the Creator has made the toiling millions for 
the use and pleasure of kings and nobles. It may be 
esteemed an act of gracious condescension in these lordly 
masters to permit their serfs to learn to read and write. 

This system has another beauty, which its advocates 
in this country have purposely kept out of sight. It 
enables priestcraft and kingcraft to gather their young 
cattle together in these herd-pens, and to feed them on 
such food, physically and mentally, as will tit both their 
minds and bodies for the uses of servitude. Every trut'i 
calculated to teach them their inalienable rights to lilr . 
libertN" and the pursuit of happiness, is sedulously e.^ 
eluded^; or, if adaiitted at all, it comes in garbled extract - 
with suitable commentaries by some spiritual or politiciv 
master, proving satisfactorily to men who are not per 
mitted to think, the divine right of kings and the duty of 
"loyalty" on the part of their subjects. Loyally I what 
a word for a citizen of the Great Republic to utter! Loy- 
alty ! for thousands of years this word has meant abject 
submission to usurpers and tyrants. Loyalty ! what a 
word for the children of the Washingtons and Putnams ! 
Ah, let them remember that when their fathers heard 
that word, it brought vividly to their minds the Benedict 
• Arnolds and the Carolina tories. 

I suppose these free schools will answer the same pur- 
pose in the hands of political factions and an infidel 
pharisaism in this country, which kingcraft and priest- 
craft use them for in Europe. Yellow-back novels, 
written by addle-pated women of low moral character, 



156 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

and speckled-back Sunday-school books, written by 
whining, canting;, hypocritical preachers, are admirable 
food to prepare the minds of children to be the slaves of 
an infidel superstition and beastl}'' lusts. 

How admirably too does this training- fit them to be 
the slaves of an upstart bondautocracy I And then too, 
when some truth forces itself on the minds of the people, 
when truth, stern and inexorable, knocks at the wretched! 
hovels of the deluded followers of priestcraft and political 
humbug-gery, and sends gaunt famine to drag forth into 
the streets these wretched children of want and oppres- 
sion with their pale faces and tattered garments, some 
hireling tool of the bondautocracy stands ready to invent 
some petty excuse, or to frame some lie to palliate these 
horrid wrongs. 

" Our long, hard winter, not long departed, was sig- 
nalized by a very general interruption of out-door labor,' 
especially in building. Thousands had no work for 
months; many were reduced to subsist on public or pri- 
vate charity. Never before, not even in the darkest 
hours of our great struggle, was beggary so common 
and so importunate. At length we have summer weather 
and summer work, when building is again suddenly ar- 
rested by a collision between the bricklayers and their 
employers — in short, by a 'strike.' " — New York THbune. 
journal of freedom, humanity, and progress, so called ! 
Don't you know better than this, Horace Greeley ? Don't 
you know that this is one of those thousand tricks you 
have invented since you have been in the service of the 
boadautocracy to delude and humbug the poor mechanic? 
Don't you know that this is a willful and deliberate false- 
hood, such as fill the lying columns of the Tribune from 
week to week through the whole year. Don't you know 
that this complaint among the mechanics of New York, 
this "strike," was not because last winter was a "long 
and hard winter" ? 

Listen, Horace, to the birds welcoming the opening 
spring with their merry songs. Look at the rabbit frisk- 
ing over the lawn Listen to the shrill whistle of the 
deer, and see it bound joyously away until it is lost in 
the deep wilds of the forest. See the nimble squirrel, 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 15 1 

leapinj^ gayly from limb to limb, now seating himself 
contentedly upon yon high bough to feed upon the swell- 
ing but. See how the green grass is springing up — how 
the trees are putting forth their leaves and buds to pro- 
duce a harvest for the inhabitants of the woods and 
fields. Ah! the wild animals kuow, the birds know, 
that they will be provided for. Hence their merry song. 
How sweet is the mingled melody of their music! how 
like a hymn of praise to the Father of all mercies ! '* Last 
winter was a long, hard winter," but they lived through 
it. They were not reduced to subsist upon " public or 
private charity." 

No ; this privilege was left to man, — to man, whom the 
Creator made in his own image, and endowed with high 
aFid noble faculties, ay, to man, whom God called his 
son. Only man rejoices not in this spring-time of promise. 
Only man's squeaking, piping voice of dissatisfaction 
mingles in discord with this hymn of nature's praise. 
Only man remembers the pinching want and beggary of 
the "last long, hard winter." Only man remembers — 
ah ! he will never forget it — his wife and children shiver- 
ing in their "looped and windowed raggedness." Only 
he remembers how he eked out to them their short rations 
till all was gone. Only man remen^bers — and how did 
that humiliating thought bow down his proud spirit ! — 
when necessity drove him forth to solicit the cold hand 
of charity. How did he drain the cup of woe to its 
bitter dreg;*, when he had to accept the grudged pittance 
from a heartless and infidel phariseeism, which looked 
upon him with a scowl on its brow and curses in its 
heart ! 

Yes, this infidel phariseeism, blasphemously called 
religion and humanity, had robbed him of his just hire, 
had defrauded him out of the fruits of his summer's 
labor; and now it curses him, because he and his little 
ones can't warm themselves by the north winds and feed 
upon ice and snow. 

God of the Christian ! is it in thy name that these 
crimes are done? Is there no thunderbolt to execute 
swift justice upon these phylacteried Pharisees who in- 
flict such wrongs upon mankind, and offer such insults to 
• U 



•^^^ THE GREAT TRIAL. 

Heaven ! Man, " reduced to subsist upon public or pri- 
vate charity !" Ah, they must have been poor negroes, 
the slaves of those heartless and cruel slave-owners and 
soul-drivers of the South ? No, no ; if it had been they, 
this philanthropic Greeley would not have dismissed the 
matter so unconcernedly. His Christian soul would have 
boiled over with holy anger; column after column of the 
Trihime would have been filled with the most distorted 
and exaggerated accounts of the thing; the dictionary 
of Billingsgate would have been exhausted for mean 
words to express his hatred and scorn of the guilty per- 
petrators ; ay, each individual case would have been a 
theme for freedom and humanity, and a dozen deliberate 
but plausible falsehoods would have been invented to 
give point and effect to each sermon ; earth and hell 
would have been moved (these canting Pharisees have 
nothing to do with heaven) to kindle the wrath of the 
people. 

No, these poor devils whom abundant and importunate 
beggary dragged about the streets of our large cities 
during the "last long, hard winter," were only "poor 
white trash," enjoying their privileges of freedom and 
equality. Only " poor white trash," whom Greeley and 
his freedom-shrieking coadjutors bought up like horses- 
to fight for the freedom of Sambo and Cuffy. Only 
"poor white trash," the pack-mules of an upstart bond- 
autocracy. What does it matter if they do suffer ? What 
does it matter if their wives and little ones do cry for 
bread? What does it matter if they do shiver through 
the " long, hard winter V What does it matter if their 
father must beg for them ? Is it not enough for him to 
know that he lives in the land of freedom and equality? 
Is he not free to beg or starve ? Ay, must it not be a 
sweet reflection to him to know that he is a voter? 
When he looks upon his suffering family, must it not be 
a great consolation to him to know that he, as a voter, 
has chosen this condition of things for them ? Poor 
little children, methinks I see them now, drawing their 
shriveled, skinny little limbs under their scanty covering: 
want, like a greedy leech, has sucked the marrow out of 
their little bones, and the blood out of their little veins; 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 159 

methinks I see them turn their wan little faces toward 
the door; maybe somebody comes with bread. No; it 
is only a chill blast from the North, breaking the flimsy 
latch which bars their crazy door. But somebody has 
come along with that chilling, piercing blast; see how 
their little eyes are fixed. Ah ! death, wearing the bony 
face of famine, stands there staring on them with a 
ghastly grin. Stop there, my rich taskmaster, stop there ; 
your cupidity can't follow them any farther. The flaming 
sword of eternal justice waves between you and them. 
You can never, never pass it. You would like to have 
kept them here, I know, if it cost nothing to toil and 
sweat through the long hot summer, and to beg and 
starve through the long hard winter ; but they have 
passed beyond your reach. They have gone where you 
can never go. They have gone to the land of freedom 
in deed and in truth. They shall hunger no more, neither 
shall they thirst any more ; for the Lamb in the midst 
of the throne will feed them, and lead them unto living 
fountains of water, and Grod shall wipe away all tears 
from their eyes. 

Was it really because last winter was a long, hard 
winter, that thousands of laboring men in the large cities 
of the United States, so called, were reduced to subsist 
upon public or private charity? Don't you. know better 
than this, Mr. Greeley! Don't you and the Sumners, 
Beechers, the Phillipses, the Butlers, the Stevenses, the 
Lucy Stones, the Anna Dickinsons, and the whole tribe 
of scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites, who boast that 
all wisdom, and all knowledge, and all virtue, belong to 
you exclusively, — don't you then know better? Don't 
you know the real cause of the suffering and privation 
among the laboring classes of the North, and South, and 
East, and West? Yes, you do know. Then why do you 
not tell ? Why do you invent this miserable flimsy ex- 
cuse ? Have you been so long in the habit of doing this 
thing, that -you, like the habitual drunkard and liar, do it 
from mere force of habit ? Or have these dupes of yours 
been so long humbugged and cheated by you that you 
think they would not thank you for telling them the 
truth ? 



160 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

I know what the matter is, Mr. Greeley ; and I will 
tell, whether they thank me or not. I am not a candidate 
for their suflfrage — either as an office-hunter, or as the 
editor of a public journal ; and therefore it is not neces- 
sary that I should flatter their vanity and their pride. 
Neither have I deceived them in order that I might de- 
fraud them, and grow rich by the fraud, and therefore am 
I not afraid for them to find out the true state of the 
case. I am one of them. I have seen what they have 
seen, and felt what they have felt — not by choice indeed, 
but by compulsion. 

I have taken physic, therefore can I feel what wretches 
feel. And although I have no superflux to shake to 
them, yet do 1 think that I can tell them how they can 
escape that pomp and power which is trampling them 
unfeelingly under its feet. I think I could tell them, too, 
how to strike so as to hit something. I think I could 
tell them how to make a strike which would interest 
even Horace Greeley and the whole band of conspirators 
and usurpers. 1 think I could tell them how to make a 
strike which would break the iron grip of that abundant 
and importunate beggary which seizes them and drags 
them around during the long hard winters, the pitiable 
objects of public and private charity. 

When you started out in public life, Mr. Greeley, did 
you not offer to sell yourself to the slaveocracy of the 
South ? and whatever evils the aristocracy of negro 
slavery had (and I confess they were many), bribery 
and corruption were not one of them. Nay, the Ran- 
dolphs and the Wises from that section were the dread 
and terror of these lobby thieves and gamblers who now 
infest the national capitol like hordes of rats eating up 
the public granaries, although the labor of the country 
has been taxed to beggary to fill them up. When these 
people refused to buy you, Mr. Greeley, did you not offer 
yourself to the aristocracy of white slaves in the North ? 
And did they not strike hands with you ? Did you not 
in revenge swear eternal enmity to the black aristocracy 
of the South? Did you not, at the same time, swear 
eternal fealty (loyalty) to the white mud-sill aristocracy 
of the North / Have you not kept your word, Mr. 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 161 

Greeley ? Have you not labored in season and out of 
season to destroy the one and build up the other? 

Did you not publish not long since, in the lYihune, an 
article boasting that under the management of the 
parties to which you belong, New York City, the com- 
mercial emporium of the land of freedom and humanity, 
had long since ceased to be a free city ? Don't you knovv, 
Mr. Greeley, that the government of New York City was 
turned over to Albany, because the aristocracy of that 
city were afraid of bread riots ? Don't you know that it 
was the dread of the muscle of over-worked and unpaid 
labor which led the aristocracy of New York City to 
buy the Slate legislature to take the government out of 
the hands of the people of that city ? Is it not monstrous, 
Mr. Greeley, for a people to boast of their unfitness for 
self-government, and at the same time to make war upon 
another people to teach them self-government ! Ay, 
does not this fact prove that the war was intended for a 
different purpose? Is it not monstrous, Mr. Greeley, for 
you to boast that your own people, born to the heritage 
of liberty, and educated both theoretically and practi- 
cally in its principles, are incapable of self-government, 
and at the same time to claim that the half-civilized 
negro, born and educated in slavery, is fit for self-gov- 
ernment? Is not this too much even for your dupes, 
miserable slaves as they are of a vile political usurpa- 
tion and of an infidel phariseeism ? Is not this fraud 
too barefaced even for a people who have been educated 
by professional liars and thieves? 

Could any man, except one who had commenced his 
public career by a crinje which ought to damn him in the 
estimation of every honest man, utter this barefaced 
falsehood without a blush ? Have not the boudautocracy, 
the masters of white slaves, paid you well for advocating 
their system of slavery ? Have you not grown rich by 
it? Are you not this day one of the aristocracy your- 
self? Has it not been the policy of the owners of white 
slaves, and your policy as one of their tools, to keep their 
eyes turned constantly upon the poor negro slave in 
order that they might not see their own degradation ? 
Did not the owners of white slaves, the Northern aristo- 

14* 



162 TEE GREAT TRIAL.. 

cracy, buy up these white slaves at lower prices than 
negro slaves were selling for at the time, in order to create 
that national blessing (Mr. Greeley's own word), a na- 
tional debt? Do you still consider it a national blessing, 
Mr. Greeley ? To you and your rich friends it may be, 
Mr. Greeley ; it is, perhaps, a great blessing to the rich 
bondholder who bought it up for forty cents in the dollar, 
and now gets paid back the whole dollar ; it is perhaps 
a great blessing to the rich who get from it a big interest, 
and don't have any tax to pay on it. 

But how is it a national blessing? These bondholders 
only constitute a small, very smal), portion of the nation. 
How is it with the laboring millions, who have to toil 
and sweat to pay this big debt and the big interest on it ? 
Don't it take their labor without pay ? Don't it take 
their sweat without bread ? Is it a great national bless- 
ing for the labor which builds up and sustains the pros* 
perity of the country to be driven by abundant and ini 
portunate beggary to subsist upon public and private 
charity? 'Tis true they are only "poor white trash," 
but have they not got feeling? do they not as well as the 
black man feel the pinching of hunger, and thirst, and 
cold ? But Mr. Greeley says, and calls as a witness to 
testify to the truth of his assertions that most accom- 
plished political trickster Governor Seymour, that two 
hundred and forty thousand laborers are interested in 
this public debt. 

Now whilst this assertion may be nominally true, it is 
virtually false. What impression do Mr. Greeley and 
Governor Seymour want to make by parading their figures 
before the world ? Why simply this, that a large pro- 
portion of the national debt is held by the laboring people 
of the country. Now Mr. Greeley knows, and Governor 
Seymour knows, that so small is each laborer's share that 
all of them put together only makes a miserable fraction 
of the whole debt. Both Greeley and Seymour know 
(if I remember rightly this trick was invented by Greeley 
himself) that the laborers were persuaded to invest their 
mite, their twenty, their fifty, their hundred dollars of 
spare change in the national debt, in order that they 
might be interested in paying that debt; or in other 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 163 

words, ia order that they might make more serviceable 
tools of their Ijondnutocratic taskmasters. But I think I 
know something which neither Greeley nor Governor 
Seymour knows. If, from their love of liberty and 
patriotism, the holders of these bonds will agree to ofi'er 
them as a sacrifice upon the altar of their country, the 
laborer will be the first to offer his mite, although it be 
his all. If they will agree to build a great bondfire, and 
appoint a certain day to burn up all their paper rags, the 
working man will be there the first man. 

The laborer cannot leave to his children a fortune. He 
can teach them how to toil and how to sweat, that's all. 
How gladh' then would he give his pittance to know that 
his children, and his children's children, would be left in 
such a condition that when they toiled they would be 
paid for it, and when they watered the ground with their 
sweat it would yield for them an abundant harvest. In 
this infidel and avaricious age, when every virtue, human 
and divine, is measured by its weight in gold, I have but 
little confidence in the virtue and patriotism of the people 
of this country. But this much I will say, the little that 
is left is found among the working people. But they 
have been the slaves of priestcraft and the dupes of 
political jugglery so long that they are afraid to do any- 
thing. Indeed, they have been flattered and cajoled, in 
order that they might be cheated and defrauded, so long, 
and so completely have they been cheated out of their 
rights and liberties, that they are afraid to hear the truth. 
They are ashamed to recognize the fact that an infidel 
priestcraft and lying political factions have reduced them 
to a condition of servitude, as degraded as that of the 
serfs of Europe. They have stopped their ears, and 
refused to listen to the voice of reason and truth. 

But men who refuse to hear may feel. They are be- 
ginning to reap the harvest of their folly ; too much sweat, 
mixed with too little bread, makes that bread bitter. 
Gaunt famine walks into their hovels, and frightens their 
little ones by rattling his skeleton bones. Abundant and 
importunate beggary seizes, not the idle and the thrift- 
less, but the industrious and intelligent mechanic, and 
reduces him to the humiliating necessity of subsisting 



164 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

upon public and private charity. And millions who bav6 
not been reduced to this painful extremity are drag-g-ing 
along under the most insupportable burdens. These 
burdens, too, are constantly growing heavier, and they 
know that without some change their turn must come 
next. So that it is not because he is poor that he is 
willing to listen to the voice of reason and truth, but be- 
cause reason and truth are to him the promise of future 
good. Ay, in his hours of need they come to him as a 
true and steadfast friend. They stand ready to tear off 
the oppressive burdens which error and falsehood have 
fastened on his back. They stand ready to break the 
chains which bind him and set him free. Truth stands 
ready to lead them in her ways, which are pleasantness, 
and in her paths, which are peace. 

It may seem to be a harsh reflection upon mankind, 
surely it is mortifying to human vanity to say, that they 
will accept truth only when driven by necessity, but it is 
so nevertheless. It was the bitter tear of repentance 
for the errors and follies of my past life which opened 
my eyes to the truth. I accepted it, not because I loved 
it, but because no other friend in the wide, wide w^orld 
could lift me out of the dark waters of affliction and 
place my feet upon solid ground. For this reason I have 
confidence in the laboring people of this country. Error 
and falsehood are dragging them down to poverty and 
ruin, and therefore will they be willing to make noble 
sacrifices for their country, for liberty, and for truth. 

But what will the rich bondholders say to this? I do 
not know what they will say ; but I know what they 
will do. Once upon a time a prophet came from heaven 
to earth, — ay, more than a prophet. He was the God- 
man — the Prince of the house of David — the King 
Emmanuel, He came to establish judgment and justice in 
the world ; he came to show poor fallen man the way 
back to heaven. One came and said unto him. Good 
Master, what good things shall I do, that I may inherit 
eternal life? He answered. If thou wilt enter into life, 
keep the commandments. The young man said unto him, 
all these have 1 kept from my youth up, what lack I yet? 
Jesus said unto him, If thou wouldst be perfect, go and 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 165 

sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt 
have treasure in heaven. But when the young man 
heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had 
great possessions. 

Just so would the rich bondholder go away sorrowful, 
if this test was applied to his patriotism. How hardly 
shall a rich man enter intt) the kingdom of heaven ! And 
how hardly, let us add, shall a bondautocrat enter into 
the spirit of patriotism ! And why should they love their 
country ? How do the rich get rich ? Look around you 
and see. Why is it that two men of equal talent and 
equal intelligence start out in life, and the one, though 
frugal and industrious, barely makes a living, and the 
other makes a fortune ? Is it not because the one has no 
conscience ? Is it not because he is willing to use means 
which the other would scorn to use ? Does not the one 
deal fairly with his fellow-men and pay honorably for all 
he gets, while the other sets traps for the unsuspecting 
and overreaches the weak? Does not this money gam- 
bler take advantage of one man's ignorance and another 
man's necessities ? Don't he take every advantage which 
the law allows ? 

And what advantages do the law-s allow? Ask the 
political tricksters and gamblers, called law-makers, who 
spend whole legislative sessions selling out the people to 
the lobby agents of great moneyed monopolies. Ask 
these professional thieves who spend their time and 
make their living by making laws to plunder the labor of 
the country, in order that the coffers of their rich masters 
may be full. Is it reasonable to suppose that these 
creatures, who live by thieving and fraud and crime, 
Avould make laws to punish themselves? And ain't these 
rich taskmasters of the people, in most cases, canting 
hypocritical Pharisees ? Don't they make long prayers ? 
ain't they constantly whining about freedom and humanity? 
Don't they for a show attend to all the forms and cere- 
monies of an infidel phariseeism? Don't they contribute 
a large share of their unrighteous gains tow^ard building 
costly temples, dedicated to mammon ? Don't they pay 
a good portion of the gold which they have filched from 
labor to a hireling priestcraft ? Don't they by their con- 



]66 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

tributioiis buy from this hypoeritical priestcraft indulg- 
ence to rob labor of its just hire, and to plunder the weak 
and unfortunate, while they are bound by the hard chains 
of necessity ? 

How could they love their fellow-men, whom they 
look upon as machines to do their threshing and reaping 
at a profitable hire ? How couFd they love their country, 
when they look upon it as a great political organization 
to be bought and sold as bank-stocks and dry-goods to 
make them rich ? How could they love the virtue and 
truth of a genuine Christianity ? Would it not be a 
bridle in their mouths? Woukl it not be a curb upon 
their rapacious greed of gain? But why should they 
not desire a despotic government? Why should they 
not approve of those usurpations and frauds which lead 
inevitably to tyranny ? Don't the rich own everything 
in despotic governments, — lands, houses, horses, swine, 
cattle, and people too ? 

I repeat what I said before : it is a miracle for a rich 
man to be either a Christian or a patriot. The expense 
of our national government, when it was organized, was 
twenty millions of dollars, and to-day it ought not to be 
a dollar more. But it has been increased to five hundred* 
millions; the expense of the State and corporate govern- 
ments is about as much more ; and a hireling priesthood 
costs about as much more, making in all about one and a 
half billion of dollars. Just think of it for one moment I 
This vast channel — as big as the Mississippi River — has 
to be filled with the sweat which flows from the brow 
of labor. When this is full, the drops which are left — 
too often drops of blood mingled with bitter tears of 
want and poverty — may go to fertilize the miserable little 
patch from which labor must gather its scanty harvest. 

Suppose these expenses were reduced to about one- 
hundredth part of what they are; suppose these idle, 
mischief-making priests were put to some honest work, 
like honester and better men ; suppose the gorgeous 
temples which they are building to mammon, and the 
thousand and one infidel gods which they have invented 
for man to worship, instead of their Creator, were con- 
verted into tenant-houses for the poor; suppose the vast 



THE rillUD WITNESS. 16 1 

systems of political and judicial fraud, which, have been 
built upon the ruins of justice and truth, were swept 
away; suppose the large armies of office-holders and 
hangers-on, who are nourished and fed by these vast in- 
stitutions, were put to work like other men. 

To have legislatures, to make and unmake from year 
to year thousands and millions of unmeaning and non- 
sensical laws, is folly. To have them to meet from year 
to year to make laws for the benefit of favored classes is 
a crime. To have vast and expensive systems of judica- 
ture to settle the disputes between men is folly. Two 
men in any community are more competent to decide any 
controversy which may arise than all the courts in Chris- 
tendom. In this case injustice may be done; in the so- 
called courts of justice injustice is always done; for 
there, when matters are decided according to right no- 
tions of justice, it costs the innocent party a large pro- 
portion of his claim to make it secure; sometimes it 
costs him half, sometimes the whole, and sometimes 
double his claim. 

Everybody who knows anything about this matter at 
all, and whoever is in the habit of thinking for himself, 
must know that these so-called courts of justice are 
gambling shops, where men meet to throw high-die, and 
pay half the stake for the privilege of a throw. Honest 
and sensible men shun and avoid them as they would 
places which are held by gangs of robbers and thieves. 
Before they will go there, they will sacrifice a consider- 
able part of their claims, although they know them to be 
honest and just; for they know that it is better to sacri- 
fice a portion of their claim than thus to have it adjudi- 
cated, where the cost will be enormous and the risk of 
losing it all very great. Why then should we keep up 
these vast and expensive systems of judicature, when 
they tend not to promote the ends of justice, but to per- 
vert them? Suppose we export these unjust and expen- 
sive institutions back to Europe, where we borrowed 
them. They may suit very well the aristocracies and 
despotism of that country, but America — which God, in 
his providence, has appointed to be the land of the free 
and the home of the brave — don't want them. We want 



168 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

justice; we want truth ; we want liberty; and in order 
to have them we must destroy all these engines of op- 
pression and power which tyranny has invented to per- 
vert the truth of the human soul and destroy the liberties 
of mankind. 

Ever since governments were established in the earth, 
three classes have conspired to make slaves out of the 
rest of mankind, — the priest, the politician, and the 
money-changer. The devil takes the money-chano^er up 
into a high mountain, and shows him the kingdom of 
this world, and the glory thereof, and says, " All these 
will I give you, if you will worship me." The barga.in 
is struck. The money-changer hands over to the devil 
his conscience, his heart, with all its holy affections, and 
his soul with its charity and benevolence. The devil at 
once instructs him in all the tricks of money-gambling. 
He soon gets gold in his possession. He goes with his 
gold and hires the priest to put on the livery of heaven 
to serve the devil in. 

The priest at once goes to work with the cunningly- 
devised words of human wisdom (and the devil helps 
him) to persuade men to worship gods of gold, of wood, 
and stone. When he succeeds in this the great work is 
accomplished ; for when once man ceases to worship the 
God who made him, and in whose hands his breath is, 
his notions of right reason are gone. 

The money-changer then hires the politician, which in 
our day at least has become the synonym of liar, and he 
goes to work by every trick and fraud which, with the 
devil's aid, he can invent, to persuade man to build up 
political and social systems which will give to the money- 
changer peculiar privileges. Thus does the priest get 
possession of the human soul, and pervert its judgment ; 
the politician gets possession of the human body, and 
makes it a beast of burden for the money-changer; and 
the money-changer a king, a tyrant, or a bondautocracy, 
in the character of a premier or satrap of the devil, rules 
the world. He uses the millions of his fellow-men to 
gratify his pride, his ambition, and sometimes his whims, 
for fun. Until these powers are overthrown, man can 
never be free, or prosperous, or happy. 



THE '.llllilJ wnwEss. 169 

The first thing to be done is for man to go back to that 
God who made him, and in whose hands his breath is. 
Let him, like the prodigal who has been feeding swine, 
return to his father's house. Will he say he don't know 
the way? Christ has said, I aiin the way, and no man 
can go unto the Father but by me. Where will they 
find Christ in popery, in protestantism, in presbyterianism, 
in methodism, or in any of the thousand and one systems 
which the cunningly-devised words of priestcraft have 
invented to deceive and cheat the human soul? Where 
shall w^e find Christ in the splendid temples built by 
human pride and human vanity, and dedicated to 
mammon ; in splendid temples, furnished with costly 
adornments and charming hired music for the purpose of 
attracting large crowds and gathering in many proselytes, 
so that the hypocritical priests who own this big show — 
this theatre of phariseeism — may get big pay and live 
among the first circles, so called ? Not long ago I went 
to one of the large cities of the country, and attended 
churches belonging to different denominations of Chris- 
tians. The glittering splendor pleased the eye ; the 
music charmed the ear, as did the smooth and polished 
rhetoric of the priest. But there was no bread and wine 
of truth for the human soul; it was left to famish and 
to die. The splendor of earthly pomp and show only 
dazzles its eyes and leaves it to blunder its way into that 
gulf whore tlie cries of its torment will ascend up for ever 
and ever. When returning from the services at the dif- 
ferent churches, the good people who worshiped there, 
in every instance, took special pains to tell me that this 
congregation was the richest in the city; that this orgaa 
cost the most money; and that their priest received a 
larger salary than any other in the city, with perhaps 
one or two exceptions. Such are the characteristic dis- 
tinctions of modern religion, called progressive. 

What were the characteristics of Christianity as desig- 
nated by its great Author? And John sent messengers 
to the Saviour to know if he was the Christ, or if he must 
look for another. What was the answer? Go and tell 
John that I am holding vanity fairs, making theatrical 
exhibitions of music, eloquence, tragedv and comedy, to 
n 15 



170 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

raise money to build fine houses of worship ? No, no. 
Go and tell John that I am collecting taxes of every- 
thing, even down to mint, cummin, and anise, to get up a 
style worthy of the Prince of Heaven ? No, no. Go and 
tell John I have taken possession of the splendid temple 
at Jerusalem, and that I have brought from heaven a 
choir of angels whose heavenly music will charm the ears 
of the children of men ? Not that. Go and tell John I 
have brought vaults of gold with me, and that I will pay 
those who will be my disciples one, two, five or ten thou- 
sand dollars, according to their learning and talent, and 
furnish them a fine house to live in, and give them many 
little presents as extras, besides? Not that, either. Go 
and tell John the blind receive their sight, the deaf hear, 
the lame walk, and the poor have the gospel preached 
to them. These were the marks of Christ and his 
religion. 

The contrast between white and black, between day 
and night, between truth and falsehood, is not greater 
than the contrast between the religion of Christ and that 
of our modern Pharisees. But these priests will say, 
Christ did not live in a philosophic and progressive age 
like this. Yes, he did visit the earth in just such an age 
as this. Who were as wise as the scribes and Pharisees, 
the lawyers and doctors ? who were as philosophical ? 
who had built as many fine systems? who had as many 
fine theories of theology? who spent as much time dis- 
cussing doctrines and creeds? who had so many rules 
for the people to observe ? who ever enforced rules with 
such scrupulous precision? who ever so exacting in col- 
lecting tithes, even down to mint, cummin, and anise ? who 
had ever been so progressive as they ? who had traveled 
so far from the religion which God had given to Abraham, 
to Moses, and to the prophets? who had ever had a 
temple of such gorgeous splendor? who had ever so 
converted their temple, devoted to the God of Israel, 
into a place for vanity fairs, theatrical exhibitions, and 
merchandise ? Nobody has ever done such things, but 
popery in the sixteenth century and infidel pharisaism in 
the nineteenth century. 

When did priestcraft wear such long robes, say such 



THE THIRD WITNESS. lU 

long prayers, make such pretence to purity and virtue? 
When did they ever so heartily thank God that they 
v^-ere pure and holy, and not sinners like other men ? 
But where are the scribes and Pharisees ? Where is their 
wisdom, their philosophy, and their long prayers ? Where 
are their splendid temples, wherein was the altar of the 
living God ? and where is Jerusalem, once the city of the 
great King ? 

The Pvoman legions are battering down its walls, and 
on the inside civil wars, disease and famine are feeding 
upon its vitals. Amidst woes which it chills the human 
soul to remember, perished the proud and self-righteous 
Pharisee, the temple which he had desecrated, and the 
city which he had polluted. And their children, who 
boasted that Abraham was their father even when they 
were doing the works of thf devil, who had forgotten 
the God of their fathers and dishonored his religion, were 
scattered in his anger to the four winds of heaven. For 
hundreds of years they were a reproach among the nations 
of the earth, a hissing and a by-word. 

But still the question comes up, Where will we find 
Christ ? Ask him and he will tell you. He came to earth 
to show man the way to heaven. Ask him ; you have 
his word, it will tell you : he gave it for that purpose. 
What does he say himself? " Search the Scriptures, for 
in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they 
which testify of me." Don't ask priestcraft, which has 
put on the livery of heaven to serve the devil in. They 
pervert the simple truths of the Bible, in order to make 
slaves of the souls and bodies of men, so that they can 5 
build up great ecclesiastical despotisms, miscalled the 
church. They will tell you, one that Christianity means 
popery, one that it means methodism, one that it means 
presbyterianism, one that it means Congregationalism, 
and so on through the whole catalogue of theological 
fooleries. Only in one thing will these priests all agree : 
they will all with one accord tell you to pay tithes, even 
down to mint, cummin, and anise, so that your priestly 
lords may be educated in the wisdom of worldly philos- 
ophy, in order that they may be able to entertain and 
amuse their rich masters, and in order that they may be 



172 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

enabled to build splendid temples to gratify their vanity 
and their pride. 

We don't need to go to these self-constituted priests. 
We have a High-priest, who has made one sufficient 
offering for us all. He has promised to be not only our 
high-priest, but our prophet and king. God in his 
providence intended his word to take the place of priest- 
craft. Read the prophecies, and you will find it so. 
Can't anybody see the wisdom of this plan? When we 
discard priestcraft and take up the word of God, we are 
bound to believe it, and obey it, or else have no religion 
at all. 

We will be brought face to face with the great God 
of the universe. There will be no priest to lead us in 
the way which leads us to perdition, and make us be- 
lieve at the same time that we are journeying smoothly 
to heaven. We can't say then, even when we are doing 
things which our conscience condemns, that the priest 
does the same thing, and therefore we may do it. We 
can't say that this churchman, a bigoted Pharisee, does 
so and so, and therefore we can do it. Every man is 
brought face to face before the God who made him ; he 
hears him talk; he hears his commandments, his prom- 
ises, and the terrible judgments which he denounces 
against them who break his law. 

This is the living fountain which has been opened up 
for all. Every one who is athirst may come and drink, 
ay, without money and without price. You need not pay 
any tithes, as you have to do to the priests of this world ; 
^you need no splendid temples. The human soul, washed 
and purified in the fountain of God's eternal love, is the 
only temple in which Ciu-ist will dwell. You need not 
wait, as the lame man did at the pool of Bethesda, for the 
arigel to come and trouble the waters; you need not 
wait for the priests to get some mental or animal excite- 
ment. You need not wait for the priest to come along 
and trouble the waters of this fountain; for he who 
opened up this fountain says to them who have been 
lamed and diseased by sin. Take up your bed and walk. 

With the Bible in your hand, you have no need of 
-priestcraft. They are miserable hirelings anyhow; nine 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 173 

out of fen would quit preaching" if they did not get good 
pay. As a class they dress finer, and live better, ay, 
fifty per cent, better, than the vast majority of the people 
of the country. They have become the miserable tools 
of the aristocracy ; and instead of teaching the gospel 
truths, they teach such political principles as are rapidly 
tending to put all power into the hands of the rich. And 
why should they not desire a monarchy or aristocracy 
for a government? Under these forms of government 
priestcraft becomes the pet of the ruling power, because 
priestcraft is its most serviceable tool. Priestcraft, pro- 
fessing to have authority from God, teaches the people 
that it is their duty to submit to the robbery, the plunder 
and oppression of their royal masters. In order that the 
people of this country may be free, they must first free 
themselves from the domination of priestcraft. 

In doing this, let them not commit the false blunder 
of running into infidelity. Millions of people in this land 
of Bibles, by confounding priestcraft with Christianity, 
have been driven into infidelity. My countrymen, let 
me beg you not to plunge into this fatal delusion. France 
tried it once ; read her history and let it fill your soul 
with horror. God Almighty gave them up to a delusion 
to believe a lie. Truth perished ; folly, crime, war, — 
bloody and indiscriminate wau, — ruled the hour. Every- 
thing was chaos, anarchy, war, blood, murder, and death. 
They worshiped reason and philosophy ; they found 
philosophy a lie, and reason madness. Society was bled 
until it reeled aod staggered from loss of blood. And 
then poor friendless infidelity had to beg its old task- 
masters kingcraft and priestcraft to save it from utter 
ruin. 

Because an infidel pharisaism has perverted Chris- 
tianity to its own vile uses, do not therefore reject it. It 
is the truth and the only truth in the wide, wide world. 
The Bible and only the Bible can teach man his true re- 
lation to his God and to his fellow-man. Upon the truths 
of the Bible only can governments be founded which will 
make a people wise and free and happy. Our fathers 
were Bible-reading and Bible-believing Christians. Flee- 
ing from the tvranny of kingcraft and priestcraft, thev 

15* 



174 THE GREAT TRIAL, 

fled with their Bibles in their hands to the New World. 
Instructed by its truths, and guided by its wisdom, they 
founded a government which was justly the wonder and 
admiration of the world. 

Because lying political factions have perverted that 
government to the vilest of uses ; because they have con- 
verted it into a despotism to trample upon the rights of 
the people for whose good it was ordained and established ; 
'^lecause they use that government which was made for 
all for the benefit of a few ; because they use that gov- 
ernment to rob the toiling millions of the fruits of their 
labor, in order that an upstart bondautocracy may riot in 
licentious excess and pompous dissipation ; because these 
corrupt factions use the people, whose fathers were free, 
as cards to gamble with, and put up the people's money 
as the stake, so that no matter which faction wins the peo- 
ple pay the cost ; because, in the name of freedom, the 
people of this country have been made slaves : shall we 
therefore hate freedom ? Because, in the name of the 
\vise and good government which our fathers made, the 
most infamous despotism is degrading and destroying this 
country, shall we reject that government? Shall we not 
rather reject th'ose who have perverted these good things 
to make slaves of our souls and bodies ? 

Then priestcraft must die ; political factions must die; 
md the vast army of office-holders and hangers-on must 
be put to some honest work like better people. If the 
people will do this they will reduce their expenses to one- 
hundredth part of what they are. The public debt must 
die : no people who are in debt can be free ; no individual 
who is in debt can be free ; he is from necessity the slave 
of his creditors. The nation which is in debt is neces- 
sarily the slave of bondautocratic usurers and money 
gamblers. But then *' the national credit must be pre- 
served and maintained" ; " the national honor must be 
he preserved." Such stuff as this comes with a good 
•xrace, indeed, from bondautocratic thieves and political 
•amblers. It does well, too, for a hireling priestcraft to 
respond to this sentiment. 

The priestcraft of this country have been laboring for 
yenrs to pervert the simple truth of Christianity. For 



THE THIRD WITNESS. ' 175 

years they have been laboring to alienate the affection of 
one section of the country from those of the other ; for 
years they have been using every means in their power 
to distract and divide the people, to get up discord, 
enmity, and war. After many years of faithful service 
in the work of the devil, they succeeded. Tiiey produced 
strife and division in nearly all of the important ecclesi- 
astical bodies in the country. 

They were strenuously aided, too, by that other class 
of tools which has served the aristocracy of this country 
so faithfully, the politicians. These miserable factions, 
by every species of deception and fraud, labored to stir 
up the enmity and hatred of the people. These wicked 
conspirators at last succeeded in realizing the fruits of 
their diabolical work. But the people got frightened ; 
they began when it was too late to see their danger; 
they began to wake up, but already were they in the 
power of their political masters. 

Jn that dark hour methinks that there was but one 
State true to her ancient love of liberty and truth. There 
was but one State where disinterested patriotism rose up 
to the full height of the grand occasion. Why should 
she falter? The oldest of the States, she had never in 
her lifetime hesitated to lift herself up in all the grandeur 
of her power against any encroachment upon the free- 
dom of American institutions and the genius of Ameri- 
can liberty. 

When a British king and a British aristocracy were 
plotting the degradation and enslavement of the colonies, 
she sent forth her Patrick Henry, the greatest of the 
apostles of liberty, to rouse her sons to noble resistance. 
When the colonial congress met, it was one of her no- 
blest sons who drew up the title-deed to our liberties, the 
Declaration of Independence. When the war came, she 
furnished the great chief whose wisdom and heroism led 
it to a successful termination. When the convention met 
to frame a national government, one of her sons took so 
large a share in getting up the plan for a national govern- 
ment that he has been justly styled the father of the 
Constitution. When this new ship of state was to be 
launched upon the great ocean of national life, her great 



1^^ THE GREAT TRIAL. 

chief, the " first in war, the first in peace, and the first in 
the hearts of his countrymen," was put at the helm. 
With such a one at the helm her voj^age must needs be 
prosperous ; his wisdom, his humanity, his virtue, his 
truth, was a sufficient guarantee. 

Some years afterward, when the alien and sedition 
laws were forced on the country, it was her firm and de- 
termined resistance which drove out that tyrannical in- 
truder from the despotisms of Europe. Some years 
afterward, when the old hero of the Hermitage, who 
had whipped the British at New Orleans, and hung the 
carpet-bag spies which Spain had sent into Florida to 
incite the Indians to enlist and war against the American 
white man, — I say when this gallant warrior, who had 
stricken down the other enemies of his country, lifted his 
strong arm to crush that great money-tyrant, the United 
States Bank, that mighty lever in the hands of the aris- 
tocracy to impoverish and degrade labor, this State stood 
nobly by him. And a ^ew years back, when political and 
religious proscription, under the hidden guise of know- 
nothingism, born where all other proscriptive, intolerant, 
and despotic notions have been born, came sweeping like 
a flood over the country, its black tide recoiled from the 
shores of Virginia, as the ocean wave from the rock-built 
shore of earth. 

Why should she not love the Union ? Why should 
she not love a government which she had more hand in 
making than any other State. Why should she not love 
a government whose infancy she had watched over with 
a mother's care ? Why should she not love a govern- 
ment whose integrity in its manhood she had so nobly 
sustained ? She did love it with all the devotion of her 
generous heart; and by a majority of sixty thousand she 
declared her opposition to disunion and civil war. Had 
one of the great old States, New York or Pennsylvania, 
come forward and endorsed this noble act, an hundred 
thousand majority would have responded to that sen- 
timent of fraternal regard. 

But this was not to be; for with all their idle boasts 
about freedom and equality and manhood suffrage, these 
great States had long since ceased to be free, — long since 



TTIK THIRD WITNESS. Ift 

had the people of these States passed into the hands of 
political gamblers. At the head of the national govern- 
ment, and the brains which was to run that machine, was 
the most accomplished political trickster of the age. He 
was chief even among New York politicians, who are all 
educated to look up trickery as a trump card. Since he 
lias been a prominent politician, he has never spoken a 
single sentence which did not have a double meaning. 
He is the very personification of chicanery and fraud ; 
his very smile is deceit; it is as utterly impossible for 
him to be candid as it is for the devil to be a Christian. 
This cold-blooded, soulless, political gambler, who had 
taught the irrepressible conflict, must bring it on. He 
bad studied human nature, and especially its weakness, 
well; for he had used all kinds of persons to promote the 
objects of his ambition. He at once determined to pre- 
cipitate the war by taking advantage of the weakest 
point in the Southern character, — their rash and hasty 
temper. He had promised South Carolina to let Fort 
Sumter stand as it was. He broke that promise, and 
sent his ships to provision and strengthen the fort. The 
trick succeeded even beyond his expectations South 
Carolina struck down the old flag. The North was set 
on fire. 

But even then a little time for the people to meet and 
talk the matter over would have prevented the war. 
But the politicians would not have it so: they must have 
war. The bondautocracy of Wall Street said, " Make 
war, and we'll pay the expenses ; fifty millions are ready 
now." The satraps who governed the Northern prov- 
inces, miscalled States, said, " Make war; we won't fight 
ourselves, but each one of us will furnish men and money. 
Both the people of our provinces and their money belong 
to us, and we will furnish just as many men and as much 
money as you want." Thus, when five-sixths of the 
people — so called — were opposed to disunion, and nine- 
tenths of them w^ere opposed to civil war, the war was 
forced on them by political fraud and force. Men who 
were friends and brothers — men who w^ere born to a 
common heritage of freedom, and who were devoted to 
the preservation of the liberties of a common country — 

H* 



lYa THE GREAT TRIAL. 

were driven, by the cunning devices of a lying priest^ 
craft and the tricks of political thieves and scoundrels, 
to meet on a hundred battle-fields and slay each other, 
until tens of thousands — yea, hundreds of thousands — 
had perished. 

The war is over. The whole land is clad in the liabili- 
nients of mourning. One half of the country sits in the 
ashes of their desolated homes and wasted fields, weeping 
for their perished liberties. When the despots of other 
ages and other countries overrun and subjugate countries, 
— the Caesars, the Neroes, and the Caligulas, — it was 
supposed that military despotism was the harshest form 
of government which tyranny could devise ; but the 
freedom-shriekers of our land — the advocates of humanity 
and progress — have excelled those tyrants in the brutal 
and atrocious governments which they have forced upon 
the people of the South. They have insulted the pride 
of these brave and generous-hearted people by subjecting 
them to the rule of a half-civilized race of barbarians, 
once their slaves. Talk about civilization and the nine- 
teenth century 1 A crime so infamous as this has no 
parallel, either in the history of heathen or savage 
nations ; it is a pre-eminence in barbarity which stands' 
by itself. 

The people of this* country a thousand years hence 
will blush for this black page in the record of their his- 
tory ; and if a just God should punish this people — who 
have been exalted to heaven in point of privilege— for 
these crimes, as he has punished other nations for similar 
crimes, how terrible will be that punishment I But, hush I 
These people don't believe in God ; they believe in priest- 
craft, and that has taught them to worship mammon and 
a thousand other strange gods. Ah, shall he cease to be, 
who made the heaven and earth, the seas and fountains 
of waters, because the devil and his agents have per- 
suaded his creatures to believe a lie ? Will his bright- 
ness cease to flash athwart the heavens because they shut 
their eyes? Will his deep thunders cease to shake the 
earth because they stop their ears? Shall he be afraid 
of the pomp and splendor of their power who made the 
sun, and moon, and stars, the volcano, and the earth- 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 179 

quake? Shall the golden gods they worship hold back 
his hand from turning them into hell with the nations 
which forget him? 

The war is over and who is profited by it ? — the sol- 
diers? Ask them, and the voice which comes back from 
the silent graves around a hundred battle-fields will 
answer you. Ask them, and the earthy mounds, which 
cover heaps of unknown dead, piled together like the oflfal 
from butchers' stalls, will answer you. 

Ask them, and their bleaching bones, scattered ever 
the desolate fields of the South, will answer you. Ask 
them, and the lame, hobbling about on their crutches, 
and the blind, sitting on the street-corners begging, will 
answer you. Ask them, and the thousands and tens of 
thousands who are working hard at low price, and pay 
exorbitantly high for all the necessaries of life, will 
answer you. 

Who has been profited? the farmers and mechanics 
and all the vast number of working people of the coun- 
try ? Ask them, and they will tell you that they work 
hard from one year's end to another, and they can't make 
ends meet. Ask them, and they will tell you that they 
have dispensed with the luxuries and pleasures of life 
which theycould once enjoy, — ay, and many of its neces- 
saries, — and still they can't make ends meet. Ask the 
widows and orphans of the soldiers who perished in the 
war, and of the laboring people of the country huddled 
together in the cellars and garrets of our large cities, 
toiling for half pay and living on half rations. Ask the 
pretty daughters of the poor, whom there is no moral 
law to protect, for priestcraft has preached that to sleep, 
but for whom the civil law, in the name of humanity and 
freedom, has filled the cities of the country with houses 
of infamy, — those graves of hell in which the soul and 
body are buried together forever. 

• The war is over, and who has been profited by it? The 
politicians — ah, what a harvest it has been for them ! 
They have in the national treasury alone five hundred 
millions of dollars to disburse every year. How many 
fat jobs, too, do they have every year by laying taxes for 
the benefit of big whiskey distilleries and big manufac- 



180 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

turing establisliments ! How much, too, have they been 
paid for putting the money matters of the country en- 
tirely into the hands of money gamblers! Who has 
been profited ? — the bo?ulautocracy. A h ! did you ever see 
so mighty an aristocracy built up in any country in so 
short a space of time ? AVhilst the poor white trash 
were doing the drudgery of the war, the government 
contractors, the cotton-stealing generals, and the substi- 
tute-buyers were making fortunes. Vast moneyed mo- 
nopolies have been built up, and by the laws of your 
government, by its whole policy, canals have been dug to 
catch the sweat which flows from the brow of labor, and 
to lead it into these immense reservoirs of wealth. 

Did you ever know any aristocracy in so short a time 
to build so many princely residences ? Did you ever 
know any aristocracy to live in such wild and reckless 
extravagance ? Did you ever see it make so gaudy a 
show ? Did you ever see before in its train such useless, 
foolish pomp? Did you ever before see their wives and 
daughters adorned with so many and so costly trinkets 
of fashion? The aristocracy of Europe, though hun- 
dreds of years old, are not half as high in their preten- 
sions, not half as dazzling in the splendor of their pomp, 
as these upstart thieves of our own land; nor are the 
serfs of these aristocracies half as obsequious in iheir 
servility to their old taskmasters as are the white slaves 
of this country to these upstart thieves and usurpers. 

And yet the miserable slaves who are afraid to look 
upon the polished boots of their taskmasters are im- 
pudently prating about freedom and equality. Equality, 
poor devils ! thousands of your rich masters would not 
permit you to come into their kitchens, much less into 
their parlors. What men are these to oflfer freedom and 
equality to woman in the hind of Washington ? Boot- 
blacks and ostlers of an upstart aristocracy, whose bloated 
carcasses have been swelled into huge proportions hv 
sucking the lire-l>lood of their country. Who has been 
profited ? Priestcraft. Were their robes ever so long 
before? Were their salaries ever so big? Did it ever 
happen in the world before, that so many splendid temples 
were built in so short a time to mammon, and the idol 



THE THIRD \yjTM:SS. 181 

gods whom they have taught the people to worship? 
How many political conventions, in the name of religion, 
have been held in this country since the war? How 
lO'Mjy of these ecclesiastical despotisms are plotting union 
with the political tyranny of this country, in order that 
they may have the exclusive right to collect tithes of mint, 
cummin, and anise ? 

Was there ever impudence so unblushing as that of this 
bondautocracy ? It promised at the beginning of the war, 
that if the working men would do the fighting, that they 
would pay the expenses ; but now they say that they 
only lent their money to the government, and that they 
must have it back. Ay, more, that where they lent forty 
dollars they must have a hundred. The government 
promises this, and the promise must be kept. And who 
constitutes this government? Why, the politicians, the 
slaves of the bondautocracy who made the war, to please 
the bondautocracy. Did not the rich promise to pay ex- 
penses, if the people would do the fighting? Why don't 
they keep their promise? Suppose the people should de- 
mand back the blood which they gave to the war. Is 
there enough in the veins of all the political gamblers 
and bondautocratic thieves to pay it? 

Let these Shylocks beware ; they have gotten already 
rivers of blood and iiecatombs of human bodies. And 
what oceans of tears flowed from the eyes of widows and 
orphans I And millious and billions of money they have 
gathered into their coffers. And what have the people 
got? Wounds and bruises, and death, and mourning in 
their families. A divided Union, a violated constitu- 
tion, a political tyranny, and swarms of tax-gatherers 
filching from labor its hard earnings, to bolster up a cor- 
rupt and extravagant government, so called, and to feed 
the filthy bloated carcass of a licentious bondautocracy. 
W'hat have the people got? abundant and importunate 
poverty, to drive them to subsist upon public and private 
charity. 

I repeat it: if the w^ar was just, the bondautocracy and 
the politicians who were exempt from all its evils, its 
privations and hardships, ought to pay the expenses. 
The people furnished the hundreds of thousands of lives, 

16 



183 ^^^^ GREAT TRIAL. 

the rivers of blood, and the agony of woe, which no m«i 
tell. Ought not those who were exempt from all thc^e 
evils to pay the expenses? Jf, on the contrary, the \*ar 
was unjust, the politicians and bondautocracy, \rho 
brought the war about, ought to pay for it doubly. 

But instead of doing this they have by legislative fraud 
doubled the debt, and ask the people to pay this. Mow 
often does it happen that the greedy, in trying to grasp 
all, lose all ? For once I think their usual tact has de- 
serted them. Had the bondautocracy and their political 
tools estimated the public debt at what it really was, — 
about one-half of what it now is, — had they made the 
interest in it about three per cent, and taxed it like all 
other property, the people, so long used to bearing bur- 
dens, might have submitted to it, and they might have 
used it as a great power to build up in the course of time 
an aristocracy in this country. The way other despot- 
isms have made slaves out of the people is to put on 
them a little at a time, and to increase it as they see they 
are able to bear it. But Providence, who intends this 
country to be free forever, has, in his ways of inscrutable 
wisdom, given up our taskmasters to a strong delusion to 
believe a lie. They believe that, because it is done in the 
name of freedom and humanity, they can persuade the 
people of this country to take on their backs at once, and 
carry burdens such as the monarchies and aristocracies 
of Europe have been hundreds of years training their 
serfs to bear. 

Vaulting ambition has overleaped itself, and the very 
means which man is using to make slaves of his fellow- 
men, that kind J^rovidence, who has watched over this 
country from its infancy with the tenderest care, will use 
to make men free. The slaveocracy of the South, with 
its monopoly of wealth in the property of four millions 
of slaves and their political tools who helped bring war 
on the country, are overthrown ; and never, since the 
world was created, has man made to the world a higher 
or nobler exposition of truth than was made by these 
people immediately after the war. Their military power 
was broken, their civil governments were destroyed, their 
wealth, their property, had all perished in the wasting 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 183 

fires of war. Thefr hopes were blasted, and their political 
principles, which they held dearer than life itself, had 
perished; confusion was everywhere confounded. Men 
knew not where to go, or what to do. 

In this dark hour all eyes were turned to their great 
chief Gloriously had he led them in a hundred hard- 
foiight battles. His wisdom, his genius, his heroism had 
baffled, for four long years, the powers of the greatest 
nation in the world, with its overwhelming numbers and 
superior military armaments. Amidst the ruins of his 
country, and the deep humiliations of defeat, he stands 
grander than he was amidst the greatest achievements 
of his martial powers and the proudest days of his 
country's glory. Others have triumphed over the for- 
tunes of war; but he, and only he, triumphed over the 
ruins of defeat. His words, though the simplest in the 
vocabulary of language, were the divinest in the power of 
their eloquence. What were those magic words so simple, 
and yet so eloquent? — " Go to work." 

To give emphasis to his words, he adds the influence 
of his example. He too goes to work. When the people 
were free and great, and had honors to bestow, they lav- 
ished them on him. Now that they are poor slaves, he 
shares their servitude, their poverty, and their toils. 
Millions of hearts which once admired him as a hero 
now love him as a father. So effective was this good 
advice to his countrymen, that in a few months after the 
war was over no one could have told that war had been 
there, but for the desolation it had left in its track. For 
over three years this thing has continued. In the mean 
time the people have had as many different governments 
as Mexico, or been without any government, as the con- 
ceit of a low political demagogue, who imagines himself 
a Caesar, because accident had made him a President, or 
as the malice of a fanatical Congress who imagine them- 
selves the rulers and masters of this country because the 
commander-in-chief of our armies says so, might dictate. 

In addition to all these things, the governing faction, 
from motives of hatred, revenge, and ambition, flooded 
the country with every disturbing element. Priestcraft, 
with its characteristic cupidities, rushed down there to 



184 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

steal, under the license which wars of conquest and sub^ 
jug-ation usually give to the cowardly and cruel, the 
church property; and in order to justify this crime, re- 
pu^rnant not only to the spirit of Christianity which they 
hypocritically profess, but at war with the magnanimity 
which heathen nations have practiced, assembled their 
ecclesiastical bodies all over the country, and put out 
political pronunciamentos full of abuse, of lies, and foul 
slander against these people. I say they did this to stir 
up the angry passions of their own people ; for they knew 
full well that only the worst passions of human nature, 
anger and revenge, would justify the robberies which 
they contemplated. 

Political adventurers, substitute-buyers, and govern- 
ment spies and contractors, who stayed at home during 
the war, making money out of the suffering, the priva- 
tions, ay, even the blood of the hundreds of thousands 
of their countrymen who were perishing upon the battle- 
fields of the South, flocked there to get office. 

Cowards in the South who hid themselves whilst brave 
men were fighting, and policy men who fought for the 
South until it was evident theirs would be the losing side, 
and then joined with the carpet-baggers of the North, 
like a flock of foul buzzards gathered around the battle- 
fields where brave men had fought and fell, to feed them- 
selves upon their carcasses. 

The wicked fleeth where no man pursueth. So it was 
with this dastard crew. Afraid, because their guilty con- 
sciences told them that their purposes were wicked, they 
sought to raise a guard for themselves by stirring up the 
prejudices of the negroes against their former masters. 
Oh, yes, if there is to be any fighting, we will put the 
negro and brave white men at it, and we will follow be- 
hind, and plunder as we did before. The faction in power 
encouraged these wrongs, because they knew these crea- 
tures would be serviceable to them in completing that 
system of usurpations which they have been making 
under the forms of law to perpetuate their power. 

I have often wondered how brave men in the North, 
who met brave men in the- South on a hundred battle 
fields, who stood with them on the same earth, trembling 



/ 



THE THIRD y^lTNESS. 186 

and quaking beneath the shock of battle, whose blood 
mingled together on the same field, and who, perhaps, 
after the battle, wounded and bleeding, liad their famished 
thirst quenched by water from the canteen of a generous 
victor, — I say, I have often wondered how they could so 
far forget that magnanimity which has ever been esteemed 
the noblest element in the character of a brave soldier, 
as to turn over the brave soldiers of the South whose 
heroic courage they had tested for four long years, to be 
trampled on and insulted by the ignorant, the cowardly, 
and the cruel. It seems passingly strange to me, that 
men would not have more respect for brave men, and 
more confidence in them, who met them honorably on the 
field and withstood them to the death, than for those 
miserable craven camp followers, w^ho hid themselves from 
the thunders of the battle, and then came down to plun- 
der the wounded and the dying, whether they be friend 
or foe; for the history of the times shows that men who 
served in the war as Federal soldiers, now living in the 
South, are disfranchised because they refuse to vote for 
these buzzards, and indorse their infamous political theo- 
ries. 

Thus a Federal soldier, no matter if he has lost an 
arm or a leg, or both arms and both legs, fighting for the 
Union, so called, can't vote in the State of Arkansas, so 
called, unless he will swear that he believes a negro a fit 
person to marry his own daughter.* This is the test of 
loyalty in the South. The test of loyalty in the North 
is, that a man must believe that the "poor white trash" 
are only fit to be hewers of wood and drawers of water 
for an upstart bondautocracy. Such are the modern 
notions of freedom and humanity, of progress and reform. 
All these wrongs those people have borne patiently and 
heroically. Is it possible to make slaves of such a people ? 
Is it noble and magnanimous for those who overcame them 
to permit them to be thus trampled on ? 

But I have mentioned these things to get another 
fact. Men from the South, honest and intelligent men, 
have uniformly testified to this fact, extraordinary as it 



\ 



* 1868. 

16* 



186 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

may seem, that for a year after the war, and before the 
elements of discord which I have described above had 
gotten fully to work, the people of the South, without 
any government, — for the military stationed at prominent 
places were never called on by the people to settle their 
disputes, — had more peace and quiet and good order than 
had ever existed in the country before. And this thing 
happened among a people whose civil administrations 
were as equitable and whose social life was as undisturbed 
as anywhere else in the world. 

I repeat it, the catalogue of murders, thefts, and other 
crimes which disturb the peace and good order of society, 
was shorter in the Southern States than in any other 
country in the world, before the war. Was it not strange 
that when the civil governments of these people were 
destroyed, and they were virtually left without any gov- 
ernment, — for they hated the military government and 
never appealed to it, — that the peace and good order of 
society was better than it ever had been under their civil 
governments? The secret of it was, that everybody was 
poor, and everybody had to go to some honest work. 
There were no aristocracy, and no gentlemen of leisure ; 
no commercial and financial gamblers, for there was no 
money to gamble with ; no political tricksters and busy- 
bodies to divide and disturb the minds of the people, by 
schemes of plunder invented to make their own fortunes; 
scarcely any litigation, for a people who had just ^been 
plundered by a common enemy felt little inclination to 
plunder each other by the piserable tricks of fraud and 
chicanery which disgrace the judiciary of modern times. 
Men who had been born to fortune, trained by the hard 
usages of war, dropped the sword and the musket to take 
hold of the plow. Woman who had been nursed in the 
lap of fortune, and whose delicate white hands had never 
been soiled, with that noble pride which is characteristic 
of her sex, joyfully shared the hard lot of her brave 
husband, father or brother. 

Obedience to Heaven's laws brings always the fruits 
of good. Their minds, occupied with their work, had no 
time to fret over their misfortune ; the labor required to 
provide their plain fare made it both toothsome and 



THE THIRD WITNUSS. 18T 

wholesome to them, even, who had been raised on delica- 
cies. 

How is it possible to account for this most extraordi- 
nary condition of things ? Some will say that it was the 
military stationed there which kept order. But stern and 
inexorable facts refute this notion entirely. For it is noto- 
riously true that the only instances of disorder which oc- 
curred at all happened immediately where the military 
were stationed. Indeed, every instance of disorder can be 
traced to the improper interferences of the military, where 
it occurred. The soldiery was looked upon as the special 
friends of that class of society which was the least edu- 
cated in the principles of self-government, and least 
trained in those habits of individual and personal re- 
straint which preserve order in society, without the fear 
of penal laws. Under their influence the negro was some- 
times led to make aggressions upon the rights of the 
white man, which the latter would not submit to, although 
he knew that a sword in the hands of prejudice, partiality, 
and hatred, hung over his head. And I give him credit 
for it, for the man who submits to insults and wrongs 
from a cowardly fear of death is fit only to be a slave. 
But in the rural districts, far off from military posts, 
where nature was allowed to take its course and where 
the superior virtue and intelligence of the white man con- 
trolled society, there was perfect peace and quiet, perfect 
good order. 

If these things can be for one year, why not for five, 
ten, or for all time ? If society can live in peace and 
happiness without that vast and cumbrous machinery 
called government, why do we hold on to governments? 
Don't understand me to say that society can live without 
law : not at all. But this much I will say, that society 
can live without that vast complicated political machinery 
which requires one-half of the mental powers of the 
country and one-half of the physical powers to keep it 
in motion. 

Governments ought to be a few simple and well-defined 
laws (like the ten commandments), to restrain the evil 
passions of men. Instead of that, kingcraft and priest- 
craft, and their masters the money-gamblers and thieves, 



188 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

have made it a vast power, which they use first to destroy 
the liberties of mankind, and afterward to hold them in 
perpetual thraldom. This day, throughout the world, — 
not even excepting the United States, — ninety-nine men 
are the slaves of the hundredth. Perhaps in this country 
each master does not hold quite so many slaves, but even 
here the principle is just as fixed and as distinctly 
marked. 

Who does not believe that our country would be infi- 
nitely better off without those political factions who, 
when in power, spend their time and the people's money 
devising schemes of fraud and violence to perpetuate 
their power; and, when out of power, spend their time 
fishing up out of the muddy sea of political philosophy, 
so called, pretty promises of reform, to humbug and cajole 
the people in order to regain their confidence ? Who does 
not believe that with the Bible in our hand we could 
dispense with that ecclesiastical despotism called the 
church, which robs the people of whatever the politicians 
may leave them to keep up their usurped dominion over 
the human soul? Who does not know in his own com- 
munity three men, who, without being tangled and con- 
founded by miserable senseless quibbles called law, could 
decide any dispute which might arise between two men 
more honestly and fairly, and at one-hundredth part of 
the cost, than all the lawyers and courts in Christendom ? 
Who does not believe that mankind can live without 
those vast moneyed monopolies, the aristocracy, bond- 
autocracy, or whatever you may choose to call these 
money-gamblers and thieves, whose tools the priests and 
politicians are ? 

Who does not know that the political factions which 
have ruled this country for the last twenty years have 
not, in that long time, passed hardly a single law which 
was not intended to give some peculiar privilege to some 
rising aristocratic power in this country ? Who will not 
be astonished to find that during that long time every 
important measure of governmental policy advocated 
by any political party has looked exclusively to the pro- 
motion of the interest and welfare either of the slave- 
ocracy of the South or the commercial and financial 



THE TillliD WITNESS. 189 

aristocracy of the North ? Who will not be astonished 
to find out that during that long time every important 
measure of public law has been dictated either by the 
masters of negro slaves in the South, or by the masters 
of white slaves in the North ? And who, except the 
bondautocrats and their tools the priests and politicians, 
does not feel the evil results of this unrighteous legisla- 
tion ? Who that is not utterly devoid of common sense 
does not see that the rich are getting richer and fewer in 
numbers, whilst the poor are getting poorer and greater 
in numbers? Who that is not a fool or a fanatic can fail 
to see that priestcraft sells to the money-gambler, what- 
ever his trade may be, the privilege of robbing labor of 
its hire? Who can fail to see that the churchman who 
is a worshiper of mammon can buy from the priest who 
keeps his soul an indulgence to deceive and cheat and 
rob anybody he can, provided he pays a good share of his 
stealings to the church ? 

Who does not know that the millions and millions of 
dollars which are spent to keep up these more than 
wicked despotisms are coined out of the drops of sweat 
which fall from the brow of labor? Wlio does not see 
with what fearful rapidity these crushing despotisms are 
growing? Who that labors does not feel their increasing 
weight ? Who that labors does not recognize the fact 
that the time will soon come, without some important 
change, when the w^orking men of this country will be 
what they are in the Old World, miserable slaves, with- 
out any of the blessings of freedom for the present, or any 
hope for the future ? 

But have those masters of the people given the people 
nothing in this long time? How have they kept them 
in such a good humor if they have taken all? Oh, yes; 
they have given the people plenty of proniises. Every 
new faction, especially, has promised reform; they have 
invented baubles, too, for them to play with. The most 
specious and plausible of all these is suffrage. How 
wonderfully has it tickled the fancy of the people ! Let 
them choose their own masters, and they will not ask 
you either the terms or duration of their servitude. 

Even women are being persuaded that if they only had 



1 00 THE GR 1:A T TRIAL. 

the privilege of choosing the degradation to which the 
wickedness and folly of the times have reduced their 
sex, they could bear it better. It would mitigate the 
evil of separations from their husbands, which have be- 
come nowadays as common almost as marriages ; it 
would reconcile the natural antipathies and discords so 
commonly found now among married people, because 
marriages, like everything else in this money-worshiping 
age, have become matters of bargain and sale. It would 
soothe the anguish of those poor unfortunates whom the 
false notions of morals and politics which govern society 
have forced to shelter themselves in those dens of infamy 
where all t4ie beauty of virtue dies, and where the light 
of hope is put out, to be kindled no more forever. So 
admirably has this device been used to make slaves of 
the people of this country, w^ho were born free, that the 
despots of Europe have introduced it into their kingdoms 
to quiet their people, and avoid, if possible, the terrific 
storm of liberty which is to-day hanging over that 
country. 

But suppose the people would make up their minds to 
put this plaything to a better use. Suppose they would 
make up their minds to choose to vote for once, at least, 
some good for themselves; suppose they would go to 
the polls and vote down political factions; suppose they 
would vote down an insolent and domineering aris- 
tocracy, which has arrogated to itself all power, all the 
privileges and blessings of life ; suppose they would vote 
down that vast political power, which with its legion of 
corporate auxiliaries, like so many sea-monsters, eats up 
half of the fruits of their labor; suppose they would vote 
for a radical reform of this government ; suppose they 
would vindicate the truths of that declaration that gov- 
ernments are instituted among men for the good of all, 
and not for the good of a few favored classes ; suppose 
they would choose to rule awhile themselves, and make 
the government subordinate to the welfare and happiness 
of all ; suppose they would enact it as a fundamental law 
that the government should never pass a single measure 
for the exclusive benefit of any corporation, any class, or 
any individual; suppose they would decree that that 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 191 

vast army of office-holders, whose slaves thej have been 
so long, the politicians, the priests, and lawyers, should 
follow some honest calling- like other and better men ; 
suppose in this way they would reduce the expenses of 
government to the one-hundredth part of what it is to- 
day ; suppose they would thus add to the laboring and 
producing part of the community all these drones of 
society who have heretofore lived by their wits. 

These gentlemanly classes, indeed, don't make a very 
large part of society, and yet it requires nearly half of the 
products of the laboring classes to support them. For 
these gentlemanly fellows, who live by their wits, must 
live in handsome style, so that it requires just about the 
products of five or ten day-laborers to keep one of thom 
going. Somebody will say that these principles are 
radical and revolutionary ; some tool of the boudautocracy 
will start this objection at once. Is it not a little strange 
that these creatures shout and hurrah till their throats 
are sore for radical and revolutionary measures, so long 
as these measures are for the benefit of themselves and 
their bondautocratic masters; but once propose some 
vital truth, which looks to the liberation of the great 
masses of mankind from slavery and degradation, and all 
at once they will cry out that radical and revolutionary 
measures are dangerous and destructive. Were measures 
so radical and revolutionary ever adopted before, as have 
been in this country in the last five or six years? 

When I see Virginia, the mother of statesmen, a 
wretched dependency governed by a military satrap, 
I almost think I see her Patrick Henry and her John 
Randolph coming up out of their graves, their eyes 
gleaming with the lightning of inspiration, and their 
burning souls pouring upon the usurpers and tyrants 
who thus insult their memory and their names the hot 
breath of their scorn. When 1 hear white men, who were 
born free, using words and phrases taught them by their 
political masters, such as rebel, loyalty, etc., — words and 
phrases which kings and princes and aristocracies require 
their serfs to wear about them as badges of their obse- 
quious servility, — it makes my cheek tingle with a blusb 
of shame, not only for my country, but for mankind. 



192 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

But this radicalism suits their purpose. The half- 
civilized negro can be relied on, under the mauagenient 
of the carpet-baggers, to vote right, and fight rigbt, if the 
worst comes to the worst. These tyrants are getting 
afraid of their white slaves ; they have been putting 
mighty heavy burdens upon them, and they are getting 
restless; they are getting tired of living on promises; 
they need something more than the privilege of living 
in the land of freedom and humanity ; they need food 
and clothes. These are getting scarce. ** Abundant 
and importunate beggary" seizes them and leads them 
around during the long hard wiuters the pitiable objects 
of public and private charity. These ignorant negroes 
can't govern the virtuous intelligent white people of the 
South, and therefore it will be necessary to keep up large 
standing armies, to bolster up their weakness and igno- 
rance. These armies, wholly negro, will answer another 
purpose: they will hush the murmurs of whi'te slaves in 
the North, as they do this day in every country in 
Europe. 

O, yes; this kind of radicalism will do very well. 
These changes, violent and revolutionary as they are, 
all look exclusively to th.e interest of the ruling classes. 
But let some one propose to abolish slavery, not in name, 
but in truth ; to pull down all these social, civil, and 
political institutions, which privileged classes have built 
up to defend and perpetuate their power; and at once 
these very revolutionists will cry out. None of this radical- 
ism, it is dangerous to the peace of society. But they 
will say these propositions are extraordinary, unheard 
of; no people have ever adopted them before. That is 
true, I confess. And it is equally true that no people 
have ever been free, nor will any people ever be free, 
until they destroy those institutions of tyranny which 
have been successfully used for six thousand years, in 
every nation, and country, and kindred, and people, to 
hold the masses of mankind in slavery and degradation. 

I thank God we have what no people ever had in the 
world before: we have, right from heaven, from the God 
who made us, a book of wisdom and knowledge and 
truth. Not only does it tell man to be free, as the wis- 



TIIK THIRD iiir^VE^S. 193 

dom of this world does, but it tells him how to be free. 
Not only does it tell him to be happy, bat it tells him 
how to be happy ; uud this the wisdom of the world has 
never done. 

Priestcraft will sneer at this ; for, with all their learned 
theology, they are as ignorant of the Bible and its prom- 
ises to mankind as a Patagonian ; and with all their 
loud-mouthed professions they know less about the spirit 
of a genuine Christianity than honest heathens. 

Political philosophy, too, will sneer at this, although 
their utmost wisdom has been at work for six thousand 
years to ameliorate the condition of mankind, and for six 
thousand years they have most signally failed. How 
wonderfully did they seem to succeed in Egypt ages ago. 
The arts, sciences, and civilization flourished there to a 
wonderful degree. But where is Egypt, and where is 
her ancient glory ! Only the pyramids, mighty tomb- 
stones, remain to mark her grave. And Babylon, where 
is she? So terrible and swift was the ruin wiiich over- 
took her that not even her grave can be found. Persia, 
Cunhage ; where are they ? Greece, classic Greece, and 
Pvome, proud mistress of the world, where are they ? 
The Odyssey and ^Eneid of their great poets, prophets 
inspired by Heaven to teach mankind some knowledge 
of the Creator, have come down to us upon the waves 
of time; all else has perished in that angry flood. 

The houses of heathen nations were built upon the 
sand, and therefore when the rains descended, and the 
flood came, they fell, and great was the fall thereof. 
When they fell they rose no more, but went back to their 
ancient barbarism. But our house, our social fabric, was 
built upon a rock. The stone which the builders rejected 
has become the head of the corner. The storms of po- 
litical madness and folly may beat upon it, the floodgates 
of infidelity and pharisaical hypocrisy may be opened, 
and their wild torrents of anger and revengeful persecu- 
tions poured down upon it ; yet still it will stand. 

The Bible and its truths are the hope of the world. 

Its mission is to redeem man from the curse of sin, to set, 

him free. Inrtnite wisdom has decreed its mission; Ai- 

might}' power has fixed its destiny. The Bible is the 

1 If 



194 THE GREAT TRIAL. " 

truth, and the only truth in the world. Liberty is the 
daughter of truth. We in our madness and folly have 
exiled truth from our country. Liberty, bound in chains, 
mourns in sackcloth and ashes. Priestcraft has lulled 
the human soul to sleep with the opiates of infidelity ; 
and man, devoid of all notions of right reason, has be- 
come the dupe of every artifice devised to deceive him, 
and the tool of every power which chooses to use him, 
to work his own ruin. 

Our fathers believed in the Bible, and worshiped the 
God of the Bible, and they had wisdom and virtue, free- 
dom and prosperity. We believe in the theologies of 
priestcraft, the cunningly devised word of human wis- 
dom, and worship gods of gold and silver; and we have 
civil war, terrible political commotions, crushing burdens 
of debt, and taxation, usurpation and tyranny, crimes, 
folly and madness. Financial and commercial gamblers, 
who by the tricks of their trade have accumulated fabu- 
lous fortunes in a few years, stand at the top of society 
and fix its laws and customs. Political liars and thieves, 
adepts in all the villainous arts of chicanery and fraud, 
are the leaders of political factions, and direct the whole 
civil administration of the country. And yet a people 
who have deliberately cliosen all these evils wonder 
why they are crushed with debt and taxation, why their 
liberties have perished, and why dark clouds of ruin 
hang ominously over their future. Is it not time that 
the people were waking up? Have they not followed 
long enough blind guides who lead them into the muddy 
ditches of poverty, slavery, and degradation. 

'Tis man's privilege to choose good or evil ; but heaven 
has reserved to itself the right to fix the consequences. 
When he chooses good, he will be free and happy. When 
he chooses evil, he will be a miserable tslave ; ay, he will 
be turned into hell with the nations that forget God. 
The people can continue to choose these evils, and worse 
ones if they desire it ; but this they cannot do, they can- 
not avoid that harvest of woe which the wicked must 
reap. Eternal Justice has set limits to the angry waves 
of the ocean, so has He set limits to the nngry waves of 
human folly. When they reach those barriers, they break. 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 195 

roll back on themselves, and are drowned in their owq 
flood. 

I have no faith in any form of government, — demo- 
cratic, aristocratic, or monarchical. These are only cdd, 
dead forms. They have no power to protect themselves, 
much less can they protect us. If you don't believe 
what I say, ask Caesar; ask the Bourbons of France; 
ask the Dantons, Robespierres, and Marats of that coun- 
try; ask Charles I.; ask Cromwell; ask Abe Lincoln; 
or ask the empires which flourished in the ages of the 
past; and the echo of your own voice coming back from 
their silent ruins will attest the truth of what I say. 

But I have faith in the genius of Christianity; I be- 
lieve in its promises to redeem poor fallen man, and set 
him free again ; and because of this faith do I believe 
whatever stands in its way will fall. The hand of the 
Almighty will strike it down, haughty as may be the 
pride of its strength; and bright as may be the blaze of 
its glory, his fingers will snuff it out like a candle. I 
love democracy, not because it has au}'^ virtue in itself, 
but because it is that form which liberty assumes when 
left free to choose its own form. I love democracy, 
not because it has any means to secure my freedom, 
but because it is the shadow of liberty; and I know, 
when I see that shadow moving about, that liberty still 
lives. 

Not only is American democracy dead: its very 
shadow is gone. The tyrants who have destroyed our 
liberties have been deliberating for three years about the 
condition of ten enslaved provinces; and the question in 
that whole time has never come up as to how those 
provinces might be restored to free States, But who 
shall determine the condition of their slavery, — the low, 
narrow-minded, drunken demagogue who disgraces the 
executive mansion, or a gang of small politicians, thieves, 
and gamblers, ruled by the insolent and arbitrary dicta- 
tion of an old debauchee, whose very bones are rotten 
from his licentious excess of beastly indulgence ? The 
only question which has been asked about ten subjugated 
provinces — once free and independent States in the great 
family of American democracy — is this, Whether Andv 



196 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

Johnson or Thad. Stevens shall fix the condition of their 
slavery ? 

JrfUt you say the other States are free. Yes, because 
they are loyal. So are the serfs of Russia free, whilst 
they are loyal. Let them continue to obey the decrees 
of their royal master, and the czar will not disturb them. 
Why should he ? But let one of these free States pre- 
suuie to determine any question for itself against the 
wishes of the usurpers at Washington, — who boast that 
they are acting outside of the Constitution, — and such a 
State at once would be crushed as Virginia and South 
Carolina have been. Suppose the present Congress (so 
called) should, by a law allowing negroes to vote in all 
the States (and this thing will be done if there is a 
jjrobability of the election going against the radicals 
next fall); suppose the States of Ohio or Pennsylvania 
would refuse to allow their negroes to vote, as probably 
would be the case, would not the vote of such State be 
considered as fraudulent, and thrown out in determining 
the result of the election ? 

And would Ohio or Pennsylvania have any just ground 
of complaint ? Would not their mouths be stopped by 
their own declarations and their own actions? Have 
they not both sanctioned such a policy in Virginia and 
South Carolina? But those were rebel States. And so 
will Ohio and Pennsylvania be rebel States as soon as 
they refuse to obey the decrees of the national govern- 
ment, whose power they have helped to make absolute 
and unconditional. They would not even be permitted 
to discuss the question as to what constitutes rebellion, 
for they both have determined by their declarations or 
their actions that that question belongs absolutely and 
unconditionally to the national government. 

That the American democracy is dead is no longer a 
disputable question. The only question which remains 
t<» be decided is, what form shall the new tyranny assume ? 
Who will be our masters? Who will be our Caesar? 
Absolute power admits of no division; it submits to no 
restraint. If there is a power in the United States (so 
called) to determine everything to rule absolutely, it 
must reside somewhere. Where is it? This is the next 



THE THIRD W fry ESS. 197 

question which tyranny, in its progress, must determine. 
The issue has already been made. The national legisla- 
ture has claimed it. The national executive claims it. 
Had Andy Johnson been a man of any character, of any 
nerve, the question would have been settled ; but as this 
small politician, who has lifted himself into position by 
the tricks of demagogism, agreed to carry out the 
decrees of the rump after denouncing them as unconsti- 
tutional, wicked, destructive, the question was virtually 
settled without any collision, Andy compromised by 
agreeing to surrender the substance of his office, if they 
would permit him to keep the form. He consented for 
thenj to take the prerogatives of his office, if they would 
only let him remain a tenant of the White House. * 

It is hardly reasonable to suppose that such an accident 
will soon happen again. It is a fare thing, indeed, even 
among the weakest and poorest of mankind, to find one 
who, when good fortune has made him proprietor, will 
tamely consent to be a mere tenant. No other age in the 
history of our country could have possibly produced such 
a man as Andy Johnson. Nor can this age, vicious and 
debauched as it is, produce many such. When once ex- 
pediency becomes the sole rule of action, truth must 
utterly die ; and when truth is once entirely ignored, 
society itself must die; chaos and anarchy follow as a 
matter of course. I tremble for my country when I see 
its chief executive head the personification of that moral 
weakness which is ever the last fatal premonition of na- 
tional death. The cold clammy sweat upon the brow of 
mortality is not a surer indication of speedy death, than 
is a time-serving expediency written on the brow of 
society a sign of its speedy dissolution. But anarchy 
is a condition of things which is horrible even to minds 
of devils. 

The politician, the priest, and the bondautocrat have 
sown to the wind ; they must reap the whirlwind. They 
have exiled truth, they have chained liberty, they have 
debauched the morals of the people, they have forced on 
them intolerable burdens of debt and taxation, they have 
forced on them civil war with all its horrible calamities 
of privation, of wounds, of death and misery and tears; 

17* 



198 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

they have virtually destroyed our democracy, and pro- 
fessedly ignored all its constitutional restraints upon their 
power ; they have insulted the common sense of man- 
kind, and blasphemed heaven by perpetrating all these 
crimes in the name of freedom and humanity. How shall 
they escape that retributive justice which they deserve 
at the hands of a God whom they blasphemed, and at 
the hands of a people whom they have outraged and in- 
sulted ? 

There never has been but one escape for tyrants, and 
that has been to put themselves, by seizing power, beyond 
the reach of justice. A people whom they have deeply 
wronged they must now make slaves of, lest they should 
punish them for their crimes. They have destroyed the 
spirit of liberty, the ne«t step will be to get rid of its 
forms. And since the people have permitted them to 
destroy the spirit of their liberty and justice which alone 
could give beauty aud comeliness to their government, 
why should they not destroy its forms also ? Since the 
soul has departed, why should not the body too be 
buried ? Why should it be kept to stink in their nos- 
trils ? 

Has not a conspiracy already been set on foot to get 
rid of the whole thing ? Did not the African show ex- 
hibit it at Chicago? Did not the spotted circus meet 
there at the same time ? Was there not a convocation 
called ? was it not agreed that Hiram Sammy should be 
our Caesar? Was it not agreed that Bishop Simpson, 
the boss of the spotted circus, should be our pope? Was 
it not agreed that an inquisition should be established, 
and that black-hearted and bloody-minded Pharisee, the 
Rev. Waldro, should be keeper of the inquisition ? Read 
the following performance of this reverend man-eater of 
the spotted circus. "Resolved, that all government is 
')ased upon the religious ideas of those who carry it on, 
and that the Northern Methodists have acquired by con- 
quest the right to control the religion of the South. That 
it is just as wrong to allow the Southern Methodists to 
meet and worship in their own way as it would be to 
allow Lee and Johnson to call together and drill their 
armies again. 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 199 

Tlipy will soon be prohibited from so doing. The 
religion of the North is bound to rule this continent, and 
it proposes to make a proper application of our Bible to 
all the Southern States and people. A subjugated people 
have no more right to apply their own peculiar moral 
ideas than to use their physical implements of war. Rev. 
Man-eater, did jou not make a slight mistake ? Did you 
not neglect to attend the last meeting of your brother 
spiritualists, to consult " devils and damned spirits" 
about your diabolical purposes against the civil and re- 
ligious liberties of this country? Will not that old 
serpent the devil, whose servant you are, be angry with 
you for exposing the cloven foot too soon ? You are too 
impatient, Mr. Waldro ; you ought to have waited until 
Hiram was really Caesar, and the boss of the big spotted 
circus really pope. 

Have you not made another mistake. Rev. Man-eater? 
An inquisition for the nineteenth century 1 Don't you 
belong to the party of progress and reform ? you surely 
must be progressing very slowly or else you started a 
long way back. Why, poor old decrepit Spain, which 
has been the laughing-stock of the world for generations, 
reached the point you are now at three centuries ago. 
She had an inquisition three hundred years ago. You 
surely must be progressing very slowly to be just getting 
to the inquisition. 

Ah, is that— is that it — some one whispers to me that 
the Rev. Waldro belongs to the barbarians — that he is a 
nigger ! Well, well, that accounts for it all ; for a nigger 
I suppose it is a pretty good idea. These same savages 
have, I know, hardly reached the fifteenth century. I 
beg the gentleman's pardon. He has a white skin, and 
I took him to be a Caucasian. Confound the thing; how 
people get bothered these times ! I think myself so much 
above the nigger in point of intelligence and by the im- 
mutable laws of creation, that I would not have stooped 
to criticise Mr. WaJdro's opinions had I known he be- 
longed to that race. When nature had the matter in iier 
own hands, she gave the nigger a black skin so that he 
was readily distinguishable from a white man ; but since 
the jacobins and the big spotted circus have taken the 



200 TEE GREAT TRIAL. 

thing under their supervision, they often put all the black 
on the inside, so that jou can hardly tell a negro from a 
white man. 

However, I might have known this man was a nigger, 
from the blackness of his thoughts. I ought to have 
known it too, from the fellow's ignorance. Why, he oifers 
to the nineteenth century, so called, the same old lie with 
which the devil cheated the Pharisees eighteen hundred 
years ago. Because the Priu(«e of Peace, the heavenly 
Teacher, taught a religion contrary to ** our religion " and 
inculcated moral ideas contrary to " our peculiar moral 
ideas," the devil persuaded the Pharisees to put him to 
death. Saul of Tarsus thought that he was doing God 
siBrvice by persecuting Christians. And if Saul had read 
the scriptures, instead of the laws of the scribes and 
Pharisees, w^ho taught for doctrine the commandments of 
men (as our Pharisees and hypocrites do to-day), he 
would have known that it was no new idea even with 
them, but the same old lie with which the father of lies 
deceived the children of Adam. Because Abel had a 
better religion than Cain, the devil persuaded Cain to 
murder his brother. And what are these peculiar moral 
ideas of the big spotted circus? mesmerism, spiritualism, 
free-soilism, divorces, child-murder, mongrelism, adultery, 
fornication. 

Let us give a specimen of the peculiar moral ideas of 
the great moral teachers of the progress and reform 
party, the special guardians of liberty and virtue in 
the United States, so called: Some years ago, Dan 
Sickles, a member of Congress from New York, found 
out that a certain Mr. Key had .won the affections of his 
wife's heart. The injured husband, driven, not by that 
holy indignation which would hurry an honest and vir- 
tuous man to swift and terrible revenge, but by the cry 
of shame raised by the harlots and whoremasters around 
him (none of whom could perhaps have thrown the first 
stone at the guilty party), met Key on the street and shot 
him. Sickles was tried and acquitted. If there can be 
a condition of things which justifies a man in taking the 
life of a fellow-man, it is a case of this kind ; the law 
which required both adulterer and adulteress to be put to 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 201 

death ought never to have heen abolished. But Sickles 
followed a different law. Without the forms of law, he 
killed the adulterer, and took the adulteress back to his 
bosom. And the teachers of " our religion,'! and our 
peculiar moral ideas, pulpits and presses (including 
Horace Greeley), applauded this thing as a wonderful 
act of charity. They cm lied all the world to witness this 
wonderful exhibition of Christian charity and virtue. 
Yes, come everybody, and witness this wonderful tri- 
umph of charity. Come and see this murderer — his 
hands yet reeking with the blood of his fellow man — 
drawing to his bosom a harlot whose garments are still 
dripping with the pollutions of her adultery. And, ye 
^vomen of America, come and learn a new lesson of 
virtue taught by men who have found out a better re- 
ligion than that taught by the high and holy One, who 
inhabiteth eternity. Henceforth it will be your privilege 
to put on all the airs of enchantment, to practice all the 
wiles of seduction, to lead whomsoever you can fascin- 
ate to your husband's bed ; and your husband, in the 
anger of his soul, will sprinkle the polluted bed with the 
blood of your victims, and thus wash out its foul stain. 

This is but a fair sample of the peculiar moral ideas 
of a bigoted and intolerant Phariseeism, which blas- 
phemes Heaven by perpetrating such crimes in the name 
of Christianity, and insults the common sense of man- 
kind by holding them up as models of virtue. 

But how does Mr.Waldro propose to force his peculiar 
moral ideas on the people of the South ? The thing has 
often been tried, but never succeeded. It came nearer 
being a success in Spain, than in any other country in 
the world. I suppose Mr. Waldro would model his re- 
ligion after that of Spain. Whilst that wretched mim- 
icry of popery, English episcopacy, was persecuting 
Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, and everybody else 
who refused to accept its " peculiar moral ideas," popery 
in Spain was forcing its Bible and its religion on those 
whom the secular power had a right to rule, by the divine 
right of kings. Horrible prisons were built for the re- 
ception of those unfortunate wretches who dared to 
have religion and a Bible different from our religion and 
I* 



202 TIIE GREAT TRIAL. 

our Bible. Every species of torture which hatred and 
revenge could invent was provided. Bigoted and bloody- 
minded priests, like the man-eater of the spotted circus, 
were app^^inted to superintend them. 

Often at midnight, the home of some peaceful family 
was entered, and some member of it, father, mother, 
sister or brother, dragged forth to those earthly hells. 
If the victim entertained a belief not in accordance 
with the peculiar moral ideas of popery, he or she was 
commanded to recant, and abjure her faith. If the party 
refused, the torture commenced. The thumb-screw, a 
powerful vice which clamped the thumb of the victim, 
and crushed it by the slow turning of a screw; the 
rack and wheel, where the limbs of the heretic were 
stretched until* they were torn out of their sockets ; the 
pendulum, a ponderous semicircular axe, which swung 
back and forth by means of powerful machinery, de- 
scending a little lower at each vibration ; under this the 
heretic was bound fast to a bench ; he was laid on his 
back, so that he oould see this horrible implement of de- 
struction moving down with slow speed, but awful ac- 
curacy, to split him in two. By such means Spain suc- 
ceeded in hiding if not destroying all opposition to her 
" peculiar moral ideas ;" she succeeded in crushing out at 
last all religious freedom. 

When Spain commenced this horrid practice, she was 
equal in arms, in arts, and literature, to any nation in 
Europe. Besides this, her peninsular position gave her 
great maritime advantages. Her soil was as fertile as 
any in the world, and her climate delightfully mild and 
salubrious. And yet, notwithstanding all these advan- 
tages, Spain with the fearful blight of religious intoler- 
ance upon her, has been slowly sinking into weakness 
and decay, while the less favored nations of Europe have 
been rapidly growing' in wisdom, happiness, and pros- 
perity. 

How long has England been trying to force her pecu- 
liar moral ideas upon Ireland ? How long have the 
Irish people been compelled to pay for "our Bible" and 
" our religion ?" How long have these people been 
forced by the right of subjugation to pay a hireling 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 203 

priesthood to insult their moral sense, and abuse their 
relipriou ? How has that beautiful isle of the ocean been 
blighted by this curse of pharisaical intolerance? How, 
like a festering sore, has become Irish hatred of England ! 
But that sore will yet be healed. Eternal justice will 
yet wash out that dark crime against a brave, generous, 
and hospitable people, with rivers of English blood. 

Even now do I see a bow of promise to Ireland 
stretched across her soft and balmy sky. The God of the 
Bible, the Christian's God, has hung it there; and who 
shall take it down. Only the impious hands of a phari- 
saical priesthood will attempt this horrid desecration. 
Will they prevent the Almighty, and thwart his pur- 
poses ? Nay : they will only make sure their own de- 
struction, and seal their own doom. The Bible the hope 
of the world, not " our Bible," but the Bible of the 
Creator of the Universe, of the God who made man, and 
the heavens, and the earth, and the seas, and fountains 
of waters — not "our Bible," but the Bible of the believ- 
ing Christian to whatever nation, or tongue, or kindred, 
or people, he may belong, — the Bible, I say, has been 
silently, noiselessly, moving upon the hearts and minds 
of the English people. It is rousing up the human mind 
to break the shackles of an intidel philoso|)hy. It is 
rousing up the human soul to break the chains with 
which a pharisaical priesthood has bound it. 

Already has this spirit of genuine reform extorted from 
the British aristocracy the right of suffrage for two hun- 
dred thousand Englishmen, from whom that vast 
moneyed oligarchy has hitherto withheld it. But is the 
extension of sutfrage necessarily an evidence of onward 
progress and healthy reform ? Oh, no ; not by any means. 
These things have no intrinsic merit in themselves. It 
is only by the use which is made of them, and by the 
fruits which they bear, that we can judge. The very 
livery of heaven is sometimes put on to serve the devil 
in. Pharisaism itself sometimes puts on a sad counte- 
nance, uses a sanctimonious whine, wears phylacteried 
robes, and says long prayers, to cheat the soul out of 
heaven. They build around them whited sepulchres, to 
hide the rotten bones and filth within. 



204 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

Does not this reverend man-eater of the spotted circus 
propose in the name of Christ, and his reliirion of love, to 
re-establish the Spanish inquisition in the United States? 
Does he not propose to force them (the people of the 
South) by persecution, by torture and by death, to deny 
the God whom they worship, and to abjure the faiih 
which they hold ? Is it not clear to any one who has 
seen the fruits of the charity and benevolence of the 
Christian religion, that this canting hypocritical priest is 
possessed of a devil ? 

When I see a man plant his vineyard, and make from 
its fruits delicious wine, I say it is an evidence of mate- 
rial progress; when 1 see him use those wines temper- 
ately and healthfully in his family, I say it is evidence, of 
moral progress. I pronounce the wine a good thing; it 
administers to man's pleasure, and promotes health. 
When I see another man, by the use of these same wines, 
bring on himself drunkenness and disease, and on his 
family trouble and sorrow, 1 say it is evidence of retro- 
gression ; I pronounce the wine an evil thing. The first 
is Christianity which teaches temperance, and gives to 
man power to practice it; the other is fanaticism which 
gets drunk, and revels in excess, because wine is a pleas- 
ant thing. What is good niedicine in the hands of truth, 
is poison in the hands of falsehood. Truth gives just 
enough to promote health ; falsehood doubles the dose 
until the patient dies. 

So, when I see the elective franchise used in the name 
of freedom to give license to a half-civilized race of bar- 
barians and used at the same time to make slaves of the 
noblest family of the most enlightened race in the w^orld, 
I say it is evidence not of progress but of a backward 
movement. I pronounce it a bad thing, just as I do the 
wine in the. hands of the drunkard. When I see the 
elective franchise offered to woman in order that man 
may have an excuse to disregard the duties imposed 
upon him by nature and nature's God, to love and cher- 
ish and protect her, I pronounce it a bad thing, just as 
I do wine in the hands of a drunkard. When I see the 
elective franchise extended to .ignorant negroes in order 
that they may be used as tools in the hands of political 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 205 

usurpers, bondautocratic robbers, aud hireling preachers, 
to destroy the ancient democracy of America, and to 
make shives of its millions of white men whose birth- 
right was civil and religious liberty, I pronounce it a bad 
thing. It is wine in the hands of the drunkard. And 
just as surely will it bring disease and death upon the 
government, and trouble and sorrow upon the people. 

How different a spirit animates the reform movement 
in England ! The white slaves there, instead of going 
into other countries on a crusade against slavery, demand 
their own freedom first; and when they secure it they 
use it not to make slaves of the people of other States; 
but one of their very first acts is to blot from their stat- 
ute books a law requiring a sister State to keep up a re- 
ligious establishment to which they are opposed. Yes, 
to abolish the church establishment, which has hung for 
years like a weight of oppression and a badge of dishonor 
upon that proudest and noblest family of the Caucasian 
race. To do good to your neighbor, that is one of the 
evidences of genuine progress and reform ; that is one 
of the tests of Christian benevolence. 

But the bill has not yet become a law. Why not ? 
Who is opposed to this act of tardy justice to Ireland? 
Who is opposed to this wholesome reform, demanded 
\like by reason, by justice, and Christian truth? Who 
vould you think ? the devil and his angels. Surely no 
good and sane man would oppose a measure so just aud 
so wise in itself. Surely no true friend of liberty and 
humanity would want to see the Irish people taxed to 
pay for the support of a religion so mucli opposed to their 
own. And surely no Christian could desire a thing so 
repugnant to civil and religious liberty. Yes, the Eug- 
lish church, so called, English pharisaism, English priest- 
craft, is moving heaven and earth to prevent it ; yes, the 
whole pack of pharisaical w^olves, high priests, lawyers, 
doctors, and scribes have broke loose on it. They are 
moving heaven and earth to defeat it. Is it not a singular 
coincidence that just at a time when pharisaism in Eng- 
land is trying to prevent the government from abolishing 
a despotic and oppressive institution in Ireland, that at 
the. same time pharisaism in the United States should be 

18 



206 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

seeking from its government the privilege of building a 
similar institution in the Southern States. The deeds of 
Christians are the same, no matter how far apart they 
may be separated. Their deeds are those of charity and 
love. So are the deeds of Pharisees and hypocrites the 
same — hatred and cruelty and oppression, no matter if 
an ocean roll between tham. They all have the same 
father, and serve the same master, the old serpent the 
devil. Ye scribes and Pharisees, and hypocrites, how 
can ye escape the damnation of hell ? 

But will the Irish reform bill be defeated because the 
English priesthood is opposed to it? Not by any means. 
The time for priestcraft to rule the world has passed by ; 
the time for kingcraft to rule the world has passed by. 
Not because this is the nineteenth century, for it is 
nothing but the glare of an infidel philosophy ; not be- 
cause the world has accepted the genius of civilization 
as its guardian deity, for the genius of civilization, 
with all her gaudy finery and pinchbeck trinkets, is a 
filthy whore ; but because every man has in his ovi^n 
house the Bible, the source of all wisdom and knowledge 
and virtue, he will refuse to be any longer the dupe of 
priestcraft and the slave of kingcraft. English pharisa- 
ism, by identifying itself with oppression, will only make 
sure its own destruction. If it persuades kingcraft to 
join it in its unholy purpose to withstand the mighty 
flood of truth which the Bible is pouring over the world, 
it will only add the destruction of that power to its own. 

Just so will it be with priestcraft in this country. 
We'll have no Caesar and no pope, even if the African 
show and spotted circus have determined on the matter. 
Bat who is this Hiram Sammy, — this modern Ulysses, 
this elephant of the African show ? A Caesar would he 
be if there was a Rubicon to cross and a Rome which 
needed a 'master, did he with a few veteran legions add 
by conquest all of Gaul and Germany, and indeed all of 
western Europe, to the empire of Rome. Is he the classic 
scholar, the elegant historian, the able debater, the astute 
politician, and the great master of the art of war, the 
dread and terror of the enemies of Rome, the conqueror 
of its liberties, the magnificent despot, the magnanimous 
tyrant ? 



THE THIRD WITNESS. 207 

Did the republic of Rome refuse to surrender her 
liberties without a desperate struggle to one so great, so 
grand, so princely, so noble? and shall we, without a 
struggle, surrender a republic greater than Rome to 
Hiram Sammy, a military adventurer, witliout birth or 
education, promoted by political prejudice to the com- 
mand of large armies at a time when the enemies of the 
government were worn out and exhausted by many a 
hard-fought battle with abler generals ? A drunken 
butcher who staggered his way to victory over innumer- 
able defeats, and blundered his way to success over vast 
heaps of his own dead. A general who spent time and 
money and men uncounted to take fortifications which 
had no men behind them, who captured the little remnant 
of the rebel army without men or arms, ammunition or 
rations. A politician who betrayed his master, and had 
ii^t sense enough to make his duplicity respectable in an 
age when chicanery is the trump card in politics, who 
told a falsehood to hide his knavery, and told it bung- 
lingly as to be laughed at by the petty liars who do the 
lobbying at Washington. 

Has he not got a keeper, too, this Elephant of the 
African show ? Is not his keeper a small politician, with 
just about mind enough to study grammar and rhetoric, 
with just about brains enough to superintend a Yankee 
herd-pen, familiarly called a free-school ? Is not his 
keeper, too, a servant of the bondautocracy ? Did not 
the prince of bondautocrats — the most successful com- 
mercial gamblers — the biggest measurer of calico — what 
material for nobility 1 — go on to see his servant, the 
keeper, to know in what condition the Elephant was 
before the African show met? Did not he report that 
the Elephant was all right? Did not the African show 
lead him out with a gold chain fastened to a gold ring in 
his nose? Did not his keepers pinch his ears? Did not 
the animal bawl or squeal ? — or what do you call the 
noise an elephant makes when you pinch his ears ? Did 
not he say he had no mind of his own ? no conviction of 
right or wrong ? no purposes ? no plans to interfere with 
the will of the people? 

Don't the will of the people, in the parlance of the 



2(]|§ THE GREAT TRIAL. 

African show, mean the caprices of the jacobin tools of 
the bondautocracy, and the decrees of the military satraps 
of the provinces, and the opinions of the carpet-bag spies 
who gave Sambo the right ticket? Have not the white 
men of this country ceased to be a part of the people ? 
Has not their interest in the government of their fathers 
been utterly ignored? Will there be any further use for 
them until another war comes ? Won't another Hiram 
Sammy (has this one got a brother?) want heaps of 
them for a stepping-stone to fame? Oh, customs! oh, 
times I where in the world are we? Is this Rome, and 
this our Caesar ? 

Weil, I guess if a dead ape will do for one of the 
saints, a live butcher would do for a king. Oh, wretched 
infatuation of a people whose fathers- were noble and 
proud and free ! The Washingtons, the Adamses, the 
Hamiltons, and Franklins were the servants of your 
fathers; and you, their children, want Hiram Sammy for 
a king. Listen what the masters of Hiram Sammy's 
keeper say, — I mean the yard-stick nobility, — the big 
measurers of calico. A private circular has been sent 
out to the people by the prince of the bondautocrats of 
New York, and some half-dozen others of the yard-stick 
and goose-quill nobility, in which they ask the people if 
they do not desire to have Hiram Sammy Grant for their 
President and ruler. 

Mark this language, — President and ruler ! The Amer- 
ican democracy want a ruler ! Why, there is no such 
word in the political dictionary of this country as ruler. 
The Declaration of Independence, backed up by an eight- 
years' war, repudiated this thing of a ruler entirely ; our 
fathers refused to recognize it in the organization of our 
government; they declared that man was free, — that 
man himself was a sovereign, and the only one whom 
they would recognize. A ruler for a people who claim 
that sovereign power belongs to them ! — who claim that 
this right is the gift of God, and that it cannot be trans- 
ferred or alienated ! Why, the down-trodden serfs of 
Europe have rulers, kings, and princes, better known 
among our people as usurpers and tyrants. These are 
rulers. 



THE THIRD WLTXEiSS. 209 

No wonder these people talk so much about loyalty. 
If we are to have a ruler, why we must have loyally too. 
A ruler has the power to put to death those who are not 
loyal, no matter how monstrous a tyrant he may be. 
This thing will do well enough for a few people, perhaps, 
— the rich few, who become lords, dukes, and princes. 
Perhaps it would suit the yard-stick and goose-quill 
gentry, — men whose fame and merit is just equal to their • 
pile of gold and paper rags. 

And what stuff is this to make a nobility out of, to be 
sure ! — men whose only talents were a shrewd trick of 
putting off on their unskilled country customers more 
bolts of fading calico and damaged cloth than anybody 
else could sell, — sharp, but narrow-minded money- 
gamblers, without any soul, or any humanity, or any 
conscience, who watch for their fellow-men to blunder or 
fall, and rob them while they are down; and their busi- 
ness, after they get rich, is, by tricks and lies, to disturb 
the currency, and keep the prices of marketable products 
so constantly fluctuating that the whole business of the 
country becomes one big gambling concern, in which 
unconscionable and unscrupulous sharpers only can win. 
Thus is villainous dishonesty ever kept at a higher pre- 
niiuUi than gold. 

But how is it with the common people, — the millions 
who have no money to buy a dukedom or a lordship from 
the ruler? — Americans who were Corn free, and whose 
fathers were free before them? — Americans whose fathern 
had the Washingions, Adamses, the Henrys, the Hamil- 
tons, and Franklins for their servants? Do they want a 
ruler? And the foreigners, — how is it with them? Do 
they, who come to this country to be free, want a ruler? 
Why, did they not leave their homes and friends in 
Europe to get rid of rulers and the pains and penalties 
which rulers inflict on their subjects? 

No, no, gentlemen ; you are mistaken. The people of 
this country do not want a ruler, nor do they want a man 
for President who wants to be President in order that he 
may be a. ruler. And 1 can tell you more than that: not 
only is it true that they do not want a ruler, recognized 
as such by the forms of law, but it is equal Iv true that 

18* 



210 TEE GREAT TRIAL. 

they have made up their minds to rid themselves of that 
hard and unbearable rule which an illegitimate, upstart, 
moneyed power is exercising over them. 

The slave power of the South wanted to set up for 
themselves, in order that they might have an aristocracy. 
The Southern politicians — the tools of its aristocracy — - 
were wishing, for years, to bring about that condition of 
things. The result has been the destruction of their 
power. The Northern politicians — the tools of their 
moneyed aristocracy — were working for the destruction 
of negro slavery, because they discovered that white 
slavery paid better. The masses of the people of the 
North were opposed to negro slavery, because of the 
manifest cruelties which it practiced. The politicians 
who were the tools of the moneyed power of the North 
opposed negro slavery, because they found out that their 
masters could work their white slaves to more prolit. 
But they, like the negro aristocracy of the South, will be. 
disappointed. Slavery can't live in this country. The 
people are awake : its death-knell has been sounded ; and 
not only wdll it die, but all those institutions which have 
been built up to defend and perpetuate it must perish, — 
the banking institutions, the manufacturing and commer- 
cial establishments, the ecclesiastical hierarchies, and that 
vast system of fraud miscalled law, which has for hun- 
dreds of years been perfecting its schemes to make the 
personal liberty and individual rights and happiness of 
mankind dependent on and subservient to the interest of 
property, must die. 

The people are going to take this matter in their own 
hands. They are going to use the ballot which their 
masters have put into their hand as a plaything to strike 
down all these evils. This thing has been used to hum- 
bug and cheat mankind long enough. Let the people 
hold meetings of their own, especially those classes who 
have so long borne the heat and burden of the day, — the 
half-paid mechanic, the half-paid clerk, the half-paid 
miner and digger of ditches and canals, and the half-paid 
plow-holder ; in a word, the working men of every class 
who have seen the fruits of their own toil go year after 
year to support a vast political tyranny miscalled gov- 



THE TUIRD WiTXESS. 211 

ernraent; to feed a huge ecclesiastical despotism mis- 
called the church, and to pay for the gaudy show and 
licentious dissipation of a bastard aristocracy called the 
bondautocracy. Let the young men of every class, 
whose souls have not been parched and shriveled by the 
glare of gold, meet with them. Let them, when their 
old taskmasters, the priests and politicians, come to dic- 
tate to them what the}- shall do, catch them by the neck 
and heels, and cast them into the streets. 

Suppose they would inquire into such matters as these; 
why the free-born people of America should have a 
government as expensive as that of Russia; why they 
should have a public debt as large as that of Russia ; 
why the laboring people of this country should be the 
slaves of these despicable tyrannies; why politicians 
whose name has become the synonym of liar should 
meet and spend six months of the year making laws, and 
spend six months of the next year repealing those laws 
and passing others; why these legislative assemblies, 
both State and national, should sell themselves out, a half 
dozen times during every session, to moneyed monopo- 
lies, and make the working people pay the cost, in the 
shape of new taxation. Is it not a notorious fact that 
the legislative bodies sell themselves to the lobby agents 
of whisky distilleries, manufacturing establishments, com- 
mercial tricksters, and financial gamblers? Is it not a 
notorious fact that politicians have lost sight of the peo- 
ple and their welfare entirely ? Is it not a notorious fact 
that they spend their time perfecting and strengthening 
their party organization, so that they may keep in their 
own hands the vast power and patronage of the govern- 
ment ? These things would serve as a good- joke, while 
the people could pay tlie expense without serious incon- 
venience ; but since the evil has got so big that millions 
of the people have to give up the comforts of life, yea the 
necessaries of life, in order to keep it up, is it not time 
that it was put a stop to ? 

What does it matter to the great masses of the people 
what political faction has control of this mighty engine of 
oppression and plunder? What is the use of millions of 
laws, so called, that they make from year to year ? Who 



212 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

knows what they are? Wliat are laws, or rather what 
ought laws to be? Notliiog but a few common-sense 
rules to govern society', the fewer and simpler the better, 
for then everybody could know w^hat they are. What is 
the use of our hundred cart-loads of foolish rules, called 
laws ? Who knows what they are ? The wise ones 
who make them ? no. The lawyers who spend their 
lives studying them? no. The judges who interpret 
them? no. Then who knows what they are? nobody. 
They are nothing but a vast labyrinth of sophistry, or 
an unintelligible, nonsensical jargon, a huge pile of con- 
tradictions and absurdities, a tower of Babel with such 
a confusion of tongues, and such a contradiction of opin- 
ions, as puts everybody out of his right mind. What 
man of sense will not sacrifice a good portion of his claim, 
even when he knows his cause is a just one, rather than 
go to law? 'Tis only a man who has a bad cause that 
wants to go to law, for it is a game of chance, where the 
wrong wins as often as the r^ght. 

What are these courts of justice, so called, but gamb- 
ling shops where men go to throw high die, and pay 
half the stake for the the privilege of a throw? The 
very bulwark of oppression and wrong; where murder- 
ers and thieves go to evade the penalty of their crimes 
by the contemptible quibbles of technical rules, the refined 
sophistries of contradictory laws, the artful dodges of 
learned declamation, and the plausible deduction of moral 
arithmetic, dubbed logic ; where the strong go to have 
confirmed the wrongs they have done the weak; where 
rascals go to have the tricks sanctioned by which they 
have cheated the innocent and unsuspecting ; where the 
rich go to have approved their unrighteous oppressions of 
the poor. 

Suppose the people would ask honestly and fairly, 
what is the use of paying tithes of mint, cummin, and anise, 
to keep up a pharisaical priesthood, a huge ecclesiastical 
despotism ? What do we want with preachers at all ? 
Has not the Creator in the ways of his providence put 
his word into the hands of every man ? Ah, but say 
these priests, the people must have somebody to explain 
it to them; they can't understand it. And why not? 



Till': Till III) WITNESS. 213 

Who made man? who formed and fashioned his mind, his 
reason, and his faith ? What is the word of God ? A 
revelation of his will to man. Has God tried to tell his 
will and purpose to man, and doesn't know how to commune 
with him? Does not he know how to tell him what he 
wauts him to do ? The word is a picture of God, painted 
by the hand of God: must this picture needs be varnished 
by the sophistries of some bigoted priest before man can 
recognise it? 

The word is God made flesh and dwelling among us; 
we have in the word the example which we are to follow. 
Can the priest show us a better one? The word is a 
sword, a sharp two-edged sword, going out of the mouth 
of God ; when both edges are sharp, must it needs be 
ground by the priest before it will cut? The w^ord is the 
wisdom of God, and the power of God unto salvation ; 
must it be made wiser by the cunningly devised word of 
human wisdom before it can save? Must it be made 
strong by human logic and human sophistry before it can 
redeem ? These priests never try to make the word 
plain ; they try to make it dark ; they try to perplex it 
soHhat we will have to be dependent on them. God 
says his way is so plain that a wayfaring man, though a 
fool, need not err therein. A Presbyterian picks out one 
text, the Methodist another, the Catholics another, and 
every other creed one to suit itself, and calls this iso- 
lated text God's will. On it they build a great political 
organization, and impudently and blasphemously call it 
God's church. 

These sects always pick out some mystery which God 
never intended to reveal, and puzzle their own minds 
about it, and call this puzzle Christianity. No human 
mind can understand them, for they are the mysteries of 
God, the clouds and darkness which are the hal)itation of 
his throne, the curtains which veil the splendor of his 
power and the glory of his majesty. You see around 
you a hundred different sects with as many different 
creeds. Are these differences immaterial? Then why 
should there be any difference at all. Do they differ about 
matters which are essential? Then are ninety-nine out 
of the hundred wrong. When one looks at the many 



214 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

different kiuds of gods which priests have set up for men 
to worship, he cannot but be amazed at the ignorance 
and credulity of human nature and its low groveling 
instincts. 

The pope of Rome sets himself up as the vicegerent 
of God, and commands men to accept his say-so, instead 
of that word which was in the beginning with God and 
which was God. German infidelity sets up poor blind 
human reason for God, and commands man to follow 
that dim flickering light, that will-o'-the-wisp of philo- 
sophical speculation which leads him into the fogs of 
doubt and the slough of despond. English episcopacy 
to-day is exerting all its powers, learning, and wealth to 
prevent the English government from doing an act of 
tardy justice to the Irish people, when even publicans 
and harlots are willing to abolish the church establish- 
ment, a proscriptive and tyrannical measure which has 
so long oppressed that brave and generous people ; the 
scribes and Pharisees lift up their voice against it. 

Id the Southern States of this country the different 
ecclesiastical bodies are urging their people, crushed and 
impoverished by the desolations of a long and blo^y 
war, to increase the salaries of their preachers an(J to 
build new churches. The same parties at the North 
seem to have given themselves up to a ruthless spirit of 
hatred and revenge. Nothing but the more charitable 
spirit of the outside world prevents them from setting 
up church establishments in the South and compelling 
their unfortunate brethren of that section to pay tithes 
of mint, cummin', and anise to listen to their preaching 
of hate and revenge. The Methodist church, one of the 
largest and most influential of the Christian denomina- 
tions in this country, has its agents running over the 
South, taking possession by the forms of law of meeting- 
houses which were built by the Southern people and for 
their own use. These people nmst then absent them- 
selves from their church or go there to hear themselves 
abused. To-day in the most populous section of our 
country this ecclesiastical hierarchy is but the tool of an 
infidel faction, whose avowed object is political and 
religious proscription. Such are the fruits of the impu- 



THE THIRD ^V^1NESS. 215 

dent attempts of weak and erring mortals to reduce to 
method and order the moral guvernnient of that God 
whose universe is the paragon of beauty and the perfec- 
tion of order. 

Modern humanitarians teach that Christianity consists 
in hating peo})le who are better than you are, and in 
trying to drug them down to your own level by subject- 
ing them to the rule of a half-civilized race of barbarians. 
A sect of humanitarians teach, for Christianity, vague 
generalities and contradictory opinions. These unmean- 
ing absurdities they aim to hide in a fog of big words 
and highfalutin sentences. Let a man's crazy fancy once 
lift him up into this fog, and I'll warrant him that while 
there he will never get a glimpse of either heaven or 
earth. Such style themselves liberal Christians. 
. Out of all of them another sect has sprung up, the 
craziest of all. They teach that the Creator did wrong 
in making woman unequal to man, and subjecting her to 
his authority; that the Almighty has imposed upon iier 
an unequal share of the burdens of life. This order 
must be changed ; hereafter the woman will take the 
man's place, and man hers; she will take charge of the 
government, the courts, the church, and in a word do all 
those things which have hitherto been considered as per- 
taining exclusively to man. Man will stay at home and 
bear the babies, and suckle them. I would call the at- 
tention of all men who want to make this happy ex- 
change to Mrs. 's last advertisement: 

The wonder of the age I progress and reform ! Take 
notice, all men who are humanitarians. None others 
need apply. Bubbles, wombs, made to order. Any 
shape you want. One-eyed, lop-eared, buck-kneed, bandy- 
shanked, hump-backed, gourd-headed, shriveled-bellied, 
beast or human, as the purchaser may desire. Color to 
suit : blue, green, tawny, or yellow. Every shade and 
tint, from the tropical polished black of Africa to the 
Caucasian blonde. Black is all the rage. Our supply 
of that color nearly out. 

N. B. — His Majesty Pluto's merchant ship, skepticism, 
just landed with a new supplv fresh from Erebus. No 
666 Street, N. Y. 



216 THt: GREAT TRIAL. 

Let me call Ibeir attention, too, to the advertisement 

of that eminent female surgeon, Dr. « , who 

performs such wonderful operations in moral surgery : 

To the friends of freedom and humanity. The millen- 
nium. Woman redeemed and disenthralled. Wonderful 
achievements of modern science. Woman manised and 
man womaniHed. 

Read the following certificates from distinguished 
equals : 
■ , Professor Moral Surgery, Academy of 

Female Sciences: 

The undersigned certify that we have been the friends 
of freedom and humanity for many years. That we 
have always been anxious to give to the world some 
practical demonstration of the truth of our philosophy. 
In a word, to prove that modern science is fully compe- 
tent to change the laws of nature, and annul the decrees 
of heaven. For this purpose, we submitted ourselves to 
a surgical operation, performed by that distinguished 
surgeon . The operation is called trepan- 
ning. A slight portion of the skull, just over that por- 
tion of the brain called common sense, was removed, 
and a small piece of silver put in its place. The silver 
was so put in as to press slightly on the brain, and sus- 
pend its operation. Immediately after this operation 
was performed, we discovered that we're women ; we 

stopped in at Mrs. on our return and purchased 

wombs and bubbles. 

N. B. — As a matter of expediency we selected black 
wombs, as stronger and better bearers, and white hub- 
bies as more tempting sucklers. 

From the old who have become scarred and hardened, 
nothing can be expected. It would be useless to reason 
with them ; they have fallen in love with Mammon, and 
on the altar of that god have they sacrificed sentiment, 
feeling, and affection. Their souls they have turned over 
to the keeping of a lying priesthood, and they have kept 
them so well that even the father of lies will find no 
fault with. But can the young man when he looks upon 
his sweetheart, and sees those pretty blushes, tints of 



rilE TliiRD WITNESS. 311. 

beauty, which only love can paint ; when he feel* his 
soul dissolved in the tender, melting expression of those 
eyes, can he forget the instinctive impulse which seizes 
him to throw round that frail beauty the protection of 
his brawny arms ? Can he forget how that delicate form 
bent to shelter itself under his manhood, his virtue and 
his honor ? Can he get his own consent to transplant 
that pretty flower out of doors, to be scorched by the 
world's scorn, to be frozen by its indifference, to be 
broken and bruised and trampled under foot ? Oh, no ; 
he cannot. The world has not seen that flower's beauty. 
His eyes only have seen those blushes. He only has 
seen those bright eyes veiled in the mists of their love. 
He only has trembled before the majesty of that beauty's 
triumph. He only has felt the wild ecstasy of joy which 
thrilled his bosom when that sweet voice, modulated to 
its softest key, told him that his eyes, and only his, 
should feast themselves upon that wondrous beauty. 
Surely he would be lost to virtue, lost to manly thought, 
lost to noble sallies of the soul, if he could tell her that 
he w^ould accept those rich treasures she has offered him, 
if she will agree to take care of herself. 



19 






218 THE GREAT TRIAL. 



THE FOURTH WITNESS. 

He said: 

I was in the army, and went through the terrible four 
years' war. A preacher was appointed to go with us- 
and look after our spiritual wants ; to take care of us 
when wounded and sick, and to pray for us when dying. 
This priest wore a fine uniform, and stayed at headquar- 
ters. The best of our scanty rations, the choice bits, 
were always carried to headquarters. When a beef was 
killed they got a choice bit of steak. If flour was scarce 
they got it, and we lived on hard tack. Of sugar, coffee, 
and rice, which were almost always scarce, they got ai 
regular allowance, and we only an occasional bit. ul> 

The priest stuck close to headquarters, and shared' 
their good things. They were permitted, too, to have a' 
sufficient amount of clothing, both for wearing and sleep- 
ing, to make them comfortable. We had the scanty 
supply which w^e could carry on our backs. But all 
those things we were willing to bear for the good of the 
cause. 

Nor did we complain, for we did not believe in equality 
as our enemies did. Indeed, I sometimes envied my 
enemies, for since they, both leaders and followers, 
officers and privates, held the doctrines of equal'ty, I felt 
sure that they did not make siich discriminations against 
the poor privates. How encouraging it must have been 
to the privates in the ranks of our enemies, to see their 
officers sharing, not only their dangers, but their hard- 
ships also ; for be it said to the credit of our officers that 
they were ever in the front when danger was to be en- 
countered, except the priest, who on such occasions 
deserted headquarters and took up his abode with Com- 
pany Q, the maimed, the halt, and tlie blind. I say the 
officers of our enemies (believing in the doctrine ot 
equality) did, I suppose, not only nhnre with their priv- 
ates their dangers, but their ragged, scanty clothiug, and 



THE FOURTn WITNESS. '249 

hard fare besides. Then I su'ppose, too, that this same 
idea of equality would make their pay equal, and this 
would make all comfortable alike. But these priests — 
whom I come here to make complaint ag-ainst — they 
lived at headquarters, strutted around there in their fine 
uniform, as unmindful of the private soldier as if he had 
been a dog. 

It is true that we were often, from necessity, dirty, 
lousy, and itchy, and hardly fit to associate with a gen- 
tleman dressed up ; but then we had souls— yes, spirits 
endowed with infinite capacities and immortality of 
being; spirits which trembled not when the earth shook 
beneath them, jarred by the shock of battle, and when 
the fiery meteors of death, like spirits of devils, went 
howling and bursting through the air. 

Ah, where were our gentlemanly priests then who on 
calm, sunshiny days looked down on poor soldiers as 
beneath their notice ? How do the dread terrors of the 
battle-field hpmble the pride of man ! How they take 
the conceit out of the vain, the haughty, and the stuck- 
up ! How do they cast their pale tremor over the face 
of the hypocrite, who has been false to God, and his 
fellow-man ! You could find them at such times — I mean 
these preachers — away back in the rear, with Company Q. 
How they would scorn to keep such company at other 
times! 

There was the cook, who would rather burn wood to 
make bread than burn powder to make victories; the 
butcher, too, who would rather kill cattle than the enemy, 
considering the risk ; and the teanjster, who took more 
pride in driving commissary wagons than artillery 
wagons. And there, too, were the commissaries and 
quartermasters, who had in too many instances wronged 
the government, the army, and the people. There you 
might find also the flankers and dodgers, the faint- 
hearted, who had the will but not the nerve to do what 
they believed to be righ't. And there likewise were the 
sick and the wounded, as brave as any, and indeed the 
ionly leaven to leaven this whole lump. 

Was it not strange that these priests, who on other 
occasions put on such airs and make such pretensions, 



^0 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

were willing even to keep such company? Even here 
they might have done some good, for nearly this whole 
field was full of moral delinquencies. But what could a 
dodger say to a flanker, and how could one in the very 
act of betraying his own trust lecture quartermasters 
and commissaries? He took good care not to hint such 
things, for they would have cast the same back in his 
teeth ; but now and then we could hear one quarreling 
with a brave man who was sick or disabled, for not being 
Q>% the front. This he could do without fear of a retort, 
because he knew that the brave are always patient and 
deferential, and always more ready to defend themselves 
than to attack others. Sometimes, on a pretty bright 
Sunday, these preachers to keep from going clear to sleep 
would bring out one of their old sermons and read it to 
us. The cold rhetoric of the thing itself, and the cold 
indififerent manner in which it would be delivered, would 
have chilled the soldiers to sleep had they not been kept 
awake by the novelty of hearing a sermon. / njui 

Maybe I expected too much of the good map;. -I 
thought he ought to go round to the tents or camp fires 
of the common soldiers and get acquainted with them. 
I. thought he ought to look out the Christians among 
them, and counsel and advise and comfort them; to 
strengthen the weak with the promises of Christianity, 
and to rebuke and restrain the wicked with the threaten- 
ings of i(ts judgment. They were far away from their 
friends and home, many of them young, their habits 
as yet unfixed. They had no father to advise them ; 
and cut off in part, and in some instances altogether, 
from a mother's entreaties, that sweetest of all earthly 
persuasions. -. .■ 

At best the soldier's life is the extreme of earthly 
hardships. Deprived of all the sweet refining and en- 
nobling influences of home, home's affections, its loves, 
and its promises of future good, his bed often the cold 
earth, his pillow a stone, his-^heart, weary and sad, 
would fain persuade itself that the shrill and melancholy 
winds whistling around him were singing for him a lul- 
laby, did not memory bring to his startled mind the 
bloody field around which night has just hung her dark 



THE FOURTH WITNESS 221 

curtains. Ah ! then he knows but too well that mourn- 
ful sigh of the winds is a dirge for the thousands of dead 
who lie unburied there. Only the starry eyes of heaven 
look tenderly on him; will they not too in pity shed their 
dewy tears upon the unmourned-for dead ? When another 
day is gone In^ and those stars shall look down again to 
pount its evil deeds, they may bend their soft beams 
tenderly once more upon his eyes ; but, alas ! they will 
meet no more perchance this friendly recognition, for the 
icy film of death will ere then, it may be, have veiled 
their sight forever. 

How sweet to the soul was a word of religious com- 
fort and consolation under such circumstances I How 
could one commissioned by heaven to tell its glad tidings 
of great joy to the suffering children of earth fail to do it, 
at such a time ? Such was the conduct of these men, but 
not all. Here and there were found noble exceptions to 
this rule. Men who were not merely preachers byname, 
but in deed and in truth ; men who were not afraid of 
the battle-field, but went close enough to be in danger, so 
as to be able to attend to the wounded and administer 
comfort to the dying. How beautiful are the feet of 
those who carry to the bleeding warrior the message of 
peace : a message not, indeed, from an earthly potentate, 
but from the Prince of Peace ! Ears which gladly 
listened but just now to the thunders of battle, for they 
heard in those harsh sounds liberty and glory, turn 
eagerly to listen to the glad tidings of great joy. 

How changed is the whole aspect of things I How 
changed is the warrior's face ! But a little while ago the 
angry flush of battle was there, and begrimed, with smoke 
and powder, it was fearful to look upon. But now anger 
is gone, revenge has melted away ; forgiveness, gentle- 
ness, and mercy take their place ; a smile of unearthly 
beauty sweetly blends these heavenly virtues ; the good 
man has pointed his eye to the glories of the better land. 
He is no longer the stern warrior, but the gentle loving 
boy, who once smiled in the joy of a mother's caresses ; 
and yet hath he one fight more — calmly and joyfully his 
withered hand, his hand shattered and palsied by the weap- 
ons of war, grasps the sword of faith, and, following the 

19* 



322 THE G,REAT TRIAL. 

Captain of his salvation, the Prince of the house of 
David, he goes forth to meet his last enemy in tiie dark 
valley, and to fight his last battle. Here indeed was a 
shepherd of Israel, for here is one of the lost sheep 
saved. By their fruits ye shall know them. 

But alas for the hundreds and thousands who had no 
shepherd, except to shear them, but who were suffered to 
wander away in a dark and cloudy day, and be lost I 
Woe to the shepherds who feed the-mselves, and not the 
flock! The Almighty will require the flock at their 
hands. 

But the war is over. The last remnant of the broken 
and shattered array had surrendered. The sword was 
broken. The cause, so dear to our hearts, seemed lost. 
With that cause went down all our hopes of earthly good ; 
henceforth that land which had once been the land of the 
free and the home of the brave, would be a land of 
slavery; the descendants of the Washingtons, the 
Henrys, and Lees, would be serfs. liberty, what 
crimes are done in thy name 1 A people who pretend 
to be so much in love with freedom that they are willing 
to wage a long and bloody war to liberate the half-civ- 
ilized descendants of Ham, make slaves of the children 
of the Washingtons, MarshaUs, Masons, and Lees \ 
men who for intellect, virtue, and truth, stand without 
models among men. Yes, in the same crusade, they 
make freemen out of semi-barbarous Africans, and slaves 
out of the noblest families of the Caucasian race ; men 
who for intelligence, virtue, honor, courage, genius and 
talent, by their own admissions, are inferior to no people 
on earth. And these too their kith and kin. O shame, 
where is thy blush ! And what was our offense ? Simply 
this : we had refused to accept their boasted ideas of an 
enlightened and progressive civilization. 

If these are the fruits which grow on their trees of 
superior knowledge and wipdom, God forbid that we 
should eat them. It seems to me, from the effects they 
produce, to the same. tree which furnished fruit for mother 
Kve in the garden of Eden, — a fruit which has marred 
the beauty of the whole human family and filled all the 
earth with thorns and briars. 



THE FOURTH WITNESS. 223 

Wiiat are the effects of their superior wisdom ? One- 
half of the country is a waste and a grave-yard. What 
is the condition of the other half? Their legislative 
bodies are filled with political thieves and gamblers. 
They used to spend six months out of the year, but now 
the whole year, laying plans to keep the power in their 
own hands, and selling themselves outto the lobby agents 
of great moneyed monopolies. Their temples of justice, 
which ought to be a bulwark to defend the young and 
unsu.spectiug, the ignorant, the weak and the innocent, 
are traps in which all of these are caught by the crafty 
and the strong. Who that has a just cause will not sac- 
rifice a large part of it rather than go to a court of 
justice, so called ? For he knows if he goes there and 
wins, it will take half to pay the expenses. Their 
churches are theatres, where people go to show their fine 
clothes and to see their preacher enact some theatrical 
tragedy, or comedy, as his humor may be ; mostly 
tragedy, for their religion consists for the most part in 
bating the sins of other people. Their cities are filled 
with licensed houses of infamy, where the pretty 
daughters of the poor are sold to the lust of men ; those 
vestibules of hell, where a curtain blacker than the night 
falls around them forever. No sunlight of hope shall 
ever enter there. 

Daughters of sorrow, are there none to pity you ? 
Where are those pious preachers, who in the excess of 
their benevolence persuaded their people to make war upon 
other people in the cause of humanity ? Do they never 
think of you poor unfortunntes, lying upon your couches 
of infamy after the midnight debaucheries are over? 
Exhausted by your licentious revelries, you can't sleep, 
tired and worn-out as you are, the innocent sleep. 
You would fain weep ; but conscience has kindled in 
your bosom the fires of remorse, and they have dried up 
even the fountain of your tears. Brief and fitful will be 
life's dream to you. Eternity's wakening, what will that 
be ! If your preachers had taught their own people 
half as faithfully the divine commandment to love one 
another as they taught them the cunning words of their 
own wisdom to hate other people, you would not be left 
friendless and hopeless. 



224 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

But wbere is tbat grand army of brave young meUj 
wbo out of their love for justice and bumanity endured 
the privations and hardships of four years' war ? Where 
are these modern crusaders in the cause of freedom and 
justice ? Have they wbo had so much feeling for the 
poor negro, and sacrificed so much for his welfare, have 
they DO feeling for your welfare, who are their daughters 
and their sisters ? God has made them strong that they 
might defend your weakness, and guard your frailty. 
The sume God has thrown around the frailty of your sex 
the mystic veil of chastity, to man the most beautiful of 
all created things, that it might wake in the bosom of 
man his affections, and call forth all his powers of mind 
and body to defend that beauty. 

'Tis no wonder our enemies scoff at the sentiment of 
chivahy, so dear to our hearts, since their cities have 
become vast whorehouses. No wonder their women are 
clamoring for suffrage to defend themselves with, since 
those whom God has made strong to defend them have 
given them to be the slaves of the lusts of Oien. God 
help them if their right to vote is their only hope I This 
has failed to protect men ; how then will it protect 
women, who are so much weaker? 

It has divided society into two classes. The few, the 
bondautocrats who bask in the sunshine of prosperity, 
who revel in the luxuries of weath and licentious indul- 
gence ; and the many, who toil and sweat to pay for the 
extravagant indulgences, the licentious pleasures, and 
wasteful dissipations of the few. Are these the privi- 
leges of universal suffrage? Why the masses of the 
people, the " poor white trash," as one of our modern re- 
formers in Congress called them, cati enjoy these privi- 
leges in Russia, or Austria, or any other country where 
they don't vote. What is the use of going to the trouble 
of voting, when you can enjoy these privileges without 
voting? 

But these are my enemies I am talking about. It is 
easy, I know, to see the faults of others. Let them see to 
it ; if they are satisfied I ought not to complain. I come 
to make complaint of our own people. I was saying the 
end of the war left my country a grave-yard, a waste 



THE FOUnril WITNESS. 225 

and a desolation. All earthly prood to us had failed. 
How earnestly I looked to the meeting of our ecclesias- 
tical bodies — our synods and conferences. I felt more 
then, than at any other time of my life, the need of re- 
ligious comfort and consolation. My hopes of earth had 
perished, and I felt the need of something higher and 
better to love and live for, something which human 
power could not destroy. How natural then was it for 
me to look for advice to those who claimed to be priests, 
appointed by heaven to instruct us, shepherds to guard 
and watch over us. 

Well, the first grand council met. Yes, it met just as 
we were sinking under the awful judgments which 
Heaven had sent on us: How anxiously I waited for the 
result of their deliberations. How joyfully I received 
and read them. I thought they would be full of that 
pure and beautiful spirit which Christians often exhibit 
just after they have passed through the fires of aflBiction. 
How terribly was I disappointed. God grant that my 
faith may never again be subjected to such a trial. The 
sum and substance of their advice to us, afflicted and down- 
cast as we were, was. Don't dance, but pay your preachers 
good salaries. To brothers standing on the graves of 
their brothers and on the graves of their liberties, to 
mothers weeping over the graves of their sons, to 
widows weeping over the graves of their husbands, and 
to fathers weeping because their sons, perhaps the staff of 
old age, had fallen, they said, Don't dance. And to a 
people who had lost all their money, all their personal 
property, and whose barns, and houses, and fences were 
destroyed, and their fields a waste, they said, Pay your 
preachers good salaries. 

Was ever the human soul so mocked ? Was ever the 
God of the Christian so blasphemed ? The first impuKse 
of my distracted mind was to plunge into the dark abyss 
of infidelity. But for my Bible, where else could I have 
gone ? I found abundant comfort in the word of God. 
It was a light to my feet, and a lamp to my pathway. 
W^isdom to understand, and strength to bear up under 
my great troubles, I found there. I then asked myself 
this question: If the word of God, the simple plaiu 

K* 



^26 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

word, could give me such wisdom and strength, things 
which I could not get from a whole assembly of learned 
priests, why need I ever go to them for information ? I 
asked them for bread, and they gave me a stone ; I asked 
them for fish, and they gave me a serpent. 

*' Don't dance " was to me a stone of stumbling over 
which I came near falling. " Feed the preachers " was 
a serpent of pharisaical canning. Yes, to administer to 
the temporal wants of a pampered and tyrannical priest- 
hood, this they wanted me to accept as my religion. 
Such a religion may do for days of prosperity, when the 
sun is shining and everything is peace aud plenty. But 
it won't do for days of trouble. Those who build on ft 
will find that when the rains descend, and the floods 
come, it will fall, and great will be the fall thereof. 

When I remembered that warning taught by him who 
teaches only truth, "judge not that you be not judged," I 
was afraid to come to the conclusion which I liave beeti 
driven to since. I thought at Ifeast that I must wait and 
see furthef. 1 waited until these learned divines met 
again in council. When they did meet, I observed this 
fact, that two-thirds of their time was taken up in de- 
vising ways and means to increase their own pay. I was 
struck with the many politic plans which w^ere suggested 
to extort a liberal pay from a people broken and crushed 
by the desolations of a ruinous war; But one of theni, 
whom it seemed to me, both from his manner and the 
tamper he exhibited, nature or education had fitted for 
acting tragedy on the stage, asserted boldly, that unless 
these poor people would pay him a liberal saliary he 
would quit preaching for them. The speech of this good 
man, divested of all its sophistry, was to this effect;; 
*' Hearken unto me, all ye p6or and oppressed people. 
The Son of God, in his infinite mercy, came to earth, 
and died to save man from his sins, while on earth he 
made for man a revela*tion of his will. By his Holy 
Spirit he has called me and given me commission to de- 
clare unto you the glad tidings of great joy which that 
will contains. By his special command I have come 
unto you, furnished wnth wisdom to break the seals of 
this testament, and show you its glorious promises, which 



THE FOURTH WITNESS. 221 

are fullness of joy and life everlasting. Now if you peo- 
ple will promise to give me so much gold every year, I 
will tench you the truth of this book, that you may in- 
herit its promises of eternal happiness. But unless you 
make me this promise, the book may remain sealed to 
you forever, and you may perish in your sins." 

I trembled when I heard this horrid blasphemy, and 
saw nobody get up to rebuke it. I thanked God that we 
were no longer the slaves of a pharisaical priethood. The 
Saviour in the merciful dispensation of his providence 
has put within the reach of every Christian, in our land 
at least, a copy of his will. There can we find his prom- 
ises to us in all their simplicity and truth, so plain that a 
wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. When 
I considered these things, I wondered why it was that 
•we were so concerned to employ these learned lawyers 
and doctors, these scribes and Pharisees, to confuse with 
their sophistries, their doctrines of human wisdom, truths 
which are as plain as infinite wisdom could make them. 
Why, had we not better go to the fountain of truth itself? 
How much purer and sweeter and fresher are its waters, 
than after they have been muddled and poisoned with 
their theologies. 

This would not suit the preachers, I know, but are we 
made to serve them ? I find that they are willing to be 
shepherds as long as the sheep furnish them good fleeces, 
but when they come into the fold, and find that some- 
body else has sheared the sheep, then are they ready to 
go and leave them to wander ofl' in a cloudy and dark 
day. Yea, they will leave them to the mercy of the cold 
winds of adversity and want, to shiver and to die. 
W^hen we were rich, we did not think after these things. 

These ecclesiastical hierarchies suit the rich very well. 
They let the rich make as much money as they please, 
without being scrupulous about the means ; they may 
get rich by overreaching the weak, by trapping the. 
young and unsuspecting, by cheating the ignorant, by 
giving the laborer less than his just hire, and by taking 
advantage of the necessities of their neighbors. All 
these unrighteous means they may use to make money, 
and the preachers won't rebuke them for it, provided, 



THE GREAT TRIAL. 

they will divide liberally with them their ill-gotten 
gains. 

Ouce again did I watch the meeting of these preachers. 
Again did they spend their time discussing plans for 
better pay ; again did 1 hear their infidel theology 
preached, and that, too, more boldly and unblushingly 
than before. I will not attempt to give you the gildied 
rhetoric and pompous periods of this priestly philosopher. 
For he, with this whole tribe of modern Pharisees, has 
studied the maxims of that astute diplomatist who said 
that words were made to hide our meaning, more de- 
voutly than the truths of the Bible. But the sermon 
was substantially this. He said the Bible was an old 
fogy book. The apostles and prophets did well enough 
for their times ; but the glory had been reserved for us, 
to discover in these wise and enlightened times that 
money is the great power to Christianize the world. 
This lie too went unrebuked. 

Then came into my mind that awful denunciation of 
the Saviour. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees and 
hypocrites, for ye compass sea and land to make one 
proselyte, and when he is made ye make him twofold 
more the cldld of hell than yourselves. By means of 
money the world is not converted to Christ, but the 
Christian church is sold to the world. How sad it is to 
think that the church to-day is made up of fine churches, 
fine music, and learned discourses, polished with the de- 
ceitful words of human wisdom! The churches have 
been bought up by the world for the use of a hireling 
priesthood, to discuss philosophy and politics. Instead 
of the divine commandment " love one another," they 
preach hate ; instead of peace, they preach war. 

Well, this kind of Christianity suits the v^^orld, 'tis 
more palatable to human nature, it requires no change 
of heart, no change of life, no charity, and no benevo- 
knce. But will it answer the purpose ? By their fruits 
ye shall know them. Do men gather tigs of thistles, or 
grapes of thorns ? War with all its bloody horrors and 
desolating wastes, vast burdens of debt crushing out the 
energies of the country, floods of taxation swollen 
beyond their banks, by the wild and reckless extrava- 



THE FOURTH WITNESS. 229 

gance of a corrupt and factious legislation, sweeping 
away the resources of the country and the fruits of its 
industry. The toiling millions sweating without just 
remuneration ; and on the ruins of all I see springing 
up a vast moneyed aristocracy, that monstrous tyranny 
whose dark shadow has blighted the liberties and put 
out the hope of every other nation, and tongue, and 
kindred, and people under the sun. So sure is it that 
the wicked are turned into hell, with nations that forget 
God. 

Since our country has been desolated by the war and 
our people became poor, churches are being deserted 
everywhere. The preachers who used to preach for 
them when they were rich and prosperous, are leaving 
them. They were willing to share their good things, 
but not the evil. They are not willing to take the hard 
fare of a people who are become poor. They are not 
willing to share with these poor people their hardships 
and privations. Not they ; these fat, sleek, well-fed 
priests, who have been in the habit of wearing broadcloth 
and eating chickens. Be it far from them to wear coarse 
clothes and eat rough fare. What if human souls are at 
Hake ? Will they even for so high a consideration as 
this forego the indolent, easy lives they led, with all their 
epicurean pleasures ? Not they. But rather will they 
go off and preach for some other people who are rich and 
can pay them good salaries. 

These fellows have got their brother priests begging 
for them all over the country. I heard one of them pre- 
senting their petition not long ago. I don't ask you for 
bread, he said, for those poor, starving people, but for 
money to pay their priests. 'Tis true those poor people 
in many of those ravaged districts, at least the poor 
among them, are suffering for want of bread ; but let 
them suffer, that matter don't concern us. We don't ask 
you for bread for the starving, but for money to pay their 
priests. He closed his appeal with the threat that 
unless money was furnished these preachers they would 
go and leave these people, who used to provide so kindly 
and so liberally for them, to die in their sins. This he 
thought would be an awful thing, to suffer poor people to 

20 



2a0 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

perish for the want of the niiiiistration of the gosp€ • 
He even grew pathetic here and shed tears. 

I wondered if those tears were sincere. Does he 
really believe that those poor people will lose their 
souls unless they have somebody to preach for them ? 
Then why don't he go and preach for them ? His 
eonunission is not to sit down and preach to some rich 
conorregation. No, it is go into all the world and preach 
my gospel to every creature. Go out into the highways 
and hedges. If this is not his commission, he's got none. 
For this is the only one ever given. When the great 
Head of the church was on earth, and the prophet who 
went before him to prepare the way for him sent mes- 
sengers to know if he was the Messiah, what was his 
answer ? Simply this. Go and tell John what I am doing; 
tell him the blind receive their sight, the deaf hear, the 
lame walk, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. 

What is the highest boast of a modern preacher ? I 
preach to the largest and richest congregation in the city 
or country, as the place may be. He might indeed add, 
to heighten the effect, All these proselytes have 1 gathered 
in by the cunning words of my own wisdom, or by some 
new-fangled, infidel philosophy which I have substituted 
for Christianity. 

I have an idea why he did not go. He is getting a 
good salary. His congregation is rich, and will pay him 
more after a while. If he would go and preach for these 
poor people, he would have to become poor, and that is 
not palatable to the carnal appetites of modern pipnchers. 
When I considered all these things, I remembered the 
words of the prophet Jeremiah, about things which 
would come to pass in the latter days. I have seen in 
the prophets of Jerusalem a horrible thing. They com- 
mit adultery, and walk in lies ; they strengthen the hands 
of evil-doers, so that none doth return from his wicked- 
ness ; they are all of them unto me as Sodom and as the 
inhabitants of Gomorrah. 

Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts concerning the 
prophets, behold I will feed them with wormwood and 
make them drink the waters of gall. Thus saith the 
Lord of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets 



TEE FOURTH WITNESS. 231 

that prophesy unto you. They make you vain, they 
speak a vision of their own hearts, and not out of the 
mouth of the Lord. They say still unto them that 
despise me, the Lord has said, Ye shall have peace, and 
th(!y say unto every one that walketh after the imagina- 
tion of his own heart. No evil shall come upon you. I 
have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not 
spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had 
stood in my counsel and had caused my people to hear 
my words, then they should have turned them from the 
evil of their doings. Am I a God at hand, saith the 
Lord, and not a God afar off. Can any hide himself in 
secret places, that I shall not see him ? saith the Lord. 
Do I not fill heaven and earth ? saith the Lord. 

At this time some good people said we ought to gather 
up our dead and bury them* together. It was fit that 
those whose grief was common should weep together. It 
was fit too that those who had loved the same cause, 
who fought for it and died for it, ay, whose kindred 
spirits had gone up together in the cloud which arose 
from the field of their fame, should sleep together. This 
was a beautiful thought* Sweetly, tenderly, feelingly, 
was it done. But then pride came along. It said we 
must build marble monuments to the dead. Methinks 
if the dead could have been consulted, they would have 
forbade it. I know them. They were as modest as they 
were noble and brave. Like the great Irish patriot, 
Robert Emmett, who.se deathless heroism made his name 
a talisman of power, which wakes to-day in the bosom 
of every son of Erin the wildest aspirations for liberty, 
our dead, like him, would have said, Let our humble graves 
be unmarked, until another age and other men can do 
justice to our memory. 

But pride has no reason, no feelings, and no sense; 
we will build tombstones. They went at the work, but 
could not finish it. The rich who had brought the war 
on, who had sent their sons to the battle-field to die, 
but who had kept their property, and thus starved 
our armies and murdered the cause, they had no money 
to give; they had lost a part of their big fortune; and, 
although they had tens of thousands left, they were the 



232 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

poofi?est of all poor people. Every nerve must be strained, 
every luxury cut off, and every penny saved, to get back 
the portion of their wealth which the war had destroyed. 

But monuments cost money, and how will we get it ? 
Among the many tricks which a hireling priesthood has 
used for many years to serve their rich paymasters at the 
expense of the common people was a gambling concern, 
aptly called by John Bunyan Vanity Fairs. The way 
this thing started in the world was this : an old Pharisee 
of the priestly order wanted money to buy some fine fixings 
for his church ; the rich deacons and elders, and other 
influential members of his church, were not in a humor 
to give the money. 

"Well," says the old priest, "I have fallen on a .plan 
to adorn the house of the Lord, and thus honor him, 
that won't cost us anything. Brother Easy Conscience 
and Brother Crafty, you must go around and see Brother 
Avarice and Sister Keep- all, and the rest of our have- 
plenty and well-to-do brothers and sisters, and get them 
all to provide some good things to eat and drink. We 
will then gather it all together at the church, have a feast, 
and sell it out. Bring your pretty daughters along, and 
let them be salesmen ; they will be able to sell our goods 
for many times their value. Ay, let them put their 
smiles and coquettish airs into the market, and sell them 
to anybody that comes along. This of itself will bring 
a heap of money. Let me see, I can tell you the persons 
who will buy our good things without regard to price. 
There is Joe Careless, Simon Simple, Peter Good-nature, 
Jiike Eat, Tom Drink, Jack Spendthrift, and Love-my- 
daughter (but he can't get her) among the men ; and 
among the women who will bring there a heap of good 
things and costly, for sale, are Dolly Charity, Peggy Pride, 
Sallie Won't-be-outdone, and Betty Brag, and so on." 

This trick of pharisaism to take the advantage of the 
frailties of their fellows, and to rob them, has been most 
.unfairly called a fair. And this iniquitous scheme was 
resorted to by our people under the pretext of doing 
honor to our dead. Was this not a solemn mockery of the 
memory of those noble men who had given their lives 
as a pledge of their honor and their devotion to truth ? 



THE FOURTH WITNESS. 233 

Did I say solemn mocker}^? Ah, no I the levity and 
folly of the thing forbade even the tear which some 
generous heart, not lost to all sense of propriety, might 
have let fall upon their sleeping dust. 

When you talk to these people about these sinful 
practices, which are not only wretched mockeries of the 
beautiful charity of Christianity, but abhorrent to every 
sentiment of honor and propriety in man, they will hide 
themselves in the church ; that great fortress of pharisaism, 
built not to save men from the blight of sin and its end- 
less death, but to shelter their guilty consciences from the 
arrows of truth which fly from every page of God's 
word. Poor, miserable, deluded children of earth, you 
may hide your guilty conscience from the searching eyes 
of truth, but when the great day of his wrath shall 
come, when the heavens shall be rolled together like a 
scroll and the earth shall melt with fervent heat, will 
this flimsy covering shelter your guilty heads ? Why do 
you trust in priestcraft when the God who made you; 
and in whose hands your breath is, comes into your own 
house by his word ready to judge you, to condemn you, 
to pardon and to save you ? I saw two letters on 
this subject, which, though written by an uneducated 
private in our army, pleased me so well, that I must 
needs give them a place here. 

''Mr. Editor, — In your last issue you published an 
article signed 'Indiguata,' which I took to be a hit at 
myself. The writer was wrong in supposing I wrote the 
article which she criticfises, equally wrong in thinking 
that I had forgotten my pledge to the Ladies' Memorial 
Association. On the contrary, whenever they are ready 
to use what I promised, it shall be ready for them. I 
will go still further, and say that as long as I have a 
dollar, and it shall be needed to do honor to the dead, 
who gave their lives, the richest of blessings, to save me 
from the political degradation to which 1 am now sub- 
jected, it shall be at their service. But I was not willing 
then, nor am I yet willing, to see the beautiful and sacred 
service, instituted in honor of the Confederate dead, dese- 
crated by the levity and folly of a feast. 

" I believed then, and still believe, that the people have 
20* 



234 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

hearts io their bosoms ; hearts that can be touched by the 
sacred memories that cluster around this institution. I 
did not believe then, nor do I yet believe, that the people's 
hearts have all gone down into their bellies, and that the 
only way to get at them is by cake and ice cream, or 
some other gluttonous bait. But if this be true, if in- 
deed we have no hearts to do appropriate honors to the 
memory of our dead, if so soon we are ready to forget 
them and their heroic deeds, if the spirit of patriotism 
which thrilled them and hurried them to the front of a 
hundred battle-fields, animates us no longer, let us say 
so. Humiliating as the confession may be, let us make it. 

" But let us not, I conjure you, by their virtue, by their 
patriotism, and by their love of truth, let us not mock 
their memory by a hollow and unmeaning ceremony. It 
were better, infinitely better, that we had left their bones 
on the battle-lields where they fell. These places at least 
are sacred. And we think the dumb earth, more gener- 
ous than we, would have sent forth its green grass and 
wild flowers to shelter their bones, and hide our shame 
from the face of heaven. The genius of Liberty, when 
driven from every other spot of earth, flies for refuge to 
the graves of her martyrs. Let us not frighten her away 
by our Vanity Fairs. 

*' We are slaves, 1 admit; but the more is the necessity 
for keeping some little spot of earth consecrated to free- 
dom. Let the children growing up around us, when ihey 
visit that spot, go not as to a feast and a frolic, but teach 
their little feet to tread lightly that hallowed ground ; 
teach them to feel that sacred awe and religious venera- 
tion which rightly belong to the place. Then, indeed, 
will the spirit of liberty, which still lives there breathe 
upon them, and kindle in their young hearts the highest 
and holiest aspirations for freedom. Then, too, will 
tyrants, under whatever disguise, and for whatever pre- 
text they may choose to trifle with the liberties of man- 
kind, do it at their peril. 

" I was a Confederate soldier, and though I did but 
little, yet was that little done from a general honest 
thought of common good to all. I know what the feel- 
ings and wishes of my comrades were, because their feel- 



THE FOURTU WITNESS. 239 

JDgs and wishes were my own. Deeply did I feel, when 
comniittiDg to earth a brother soldier, and when I re- 
membered how soon his fate would probably be my own. 
My feelings at the time I wrote out in verse, and rude as 
my verses are, they express the sentiment of the soldier's 
heart. His only request was, that he should not be for- 
gotten. How little to be asked for by those of whom 
we demanded so much ! Shall that little be denied 
them ? ' 

. ■ ^ THE FREEMAN'S GRAVE. 



^',•1'.: . :■ 



Farewell, thou bravest of the brave j 

Patriot soldier, fare thee well. 
The muskets' salute o'er thy grave 

Alone can break the silent spell; 

Which holds thy weeping friends in arms. 

The friends whom friendship's chains can bind; 

But not the dread of war's alarms 
Can chain the spirit of their mind. 

For, born like thee in freedom's land, 
' . Like thee they'll fill a freeman's grave 

/J ;■ ^-'Before they'll kiss the tyrant's hand 
Or bow before oppression's wave. 

The freeman's grave, oh, dreiary waste ! 

Whence life and joy and hope hath fled ; ' 

,-,{:■; No shroud his moveless limbs to grace i!- 

Ho marble marks his sleeping head. 

Not e'en a rough, unpolished board 

Betwixt him and the clammy clay, 
To shield him from the vermin horde 

Which ere he's cold makes him their prey. 

Instinctively I dread this doom. 
Yet even thus would dare to die 
-It) Mi: Would some fond friend come near my tomb, 
fiilO T' A sigh for me, one long, last sigh. 

Would some kind hand whose rapturous touch 
Once woke the warm heart's wildest thrill, 

Plant flowers above my sleeping dust 
To bloom and say, I love thee still. 

Would 'neath afl"ection's shower of tears 

Those flov^ers of memory sweetly bloom. 
And on the waste of long, long years 
' ''' •''"'■ Shed fragrance round my lowly tomb. 

A SOLDIER.*' 



236 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

(Second Letter.) 

" Mi\ Editor, — Mj reply to ' Indiguata ' was not written 
merely for the purpose of controversy, nor was it dictated 
by a spirit of unkindness toward tbe association or any 
one of its members. My object was simply to defendthei 
truth. In what I am about to say, arid in what I may 
be led to say at any other time, I will be governed by 
the same motive. If I should be compelled to say 
things which are harsh, let it be distinctly understood 
once for all they will have no personal meaning, for I do 
not know who either of the writers are whose censures 
of my opinions and conduct have been made public through 
your paper. Indeed, it would seem, from the pretensions 
which ' a member ' sets up for herself, that I, and every 
body else who has anything to do with the association, 
ought to know who she is. Because I haven't talked to 
her about the matter, haven't proposed to pay her, haven't 
asked her how the association is getting along, therefore 
does it follow as a matter of course that I have neither 
manifested any interest in its welfare nor expressed a 
willingness to meet the promise I made to it. 

" I confess I know nothing about the government of 
the association, but this one-man power has to my mind 
a strong squinting towards absolutism ? Have they like 
the rump become Cossack in their opinions and sympa- 
thies, and followed Russia as a model for their govern- 
ments ? I can well understand the consistency of the 
rump, w^hose avowed object is to establish a despotism on 
the ruins of the liberties and constitution of their country ; 
but really I can't see the propriet}^ of the thing in a gov- 
ernment whose professed purpose is to honor the mem- 
ory of those who fell defending the principles of American 
republicanism. Nor have I ever heard that they sent a 
special embassy to congratulate that unlimited despot, 
the Czar, upon his escape from a blow of righteous justice, 
aimed by the hand of some serf, driven to desperation by 
the exaction of tyranny. 

"I don't think I should have answered this article of 
a 'Member' at all, but would have squared my account 
and thus removed the cause of her complaint, but for the 



TEtJ FOURTH WITJSESS. 237 

fact that she wants to play off on me the same game 
which 'Iiidignata' has evideutly played on her. She 
tries to shuttle into my arms that monster which I've had 
nothing to do with at all but to expose its hideousness. 
She says, your Vanity Fair. No, madam, not mine. I 
disclaim it altogether. At the first sight it seemed so 
frightful to me that I resolved never to touch it. When 
I first saw it I set it down as one of those many mon- 
strosities which have been born of Yankee cupidity and 
Yankee infidelity. I am sure it is a cousin, if not nearer 
kin, to mesmerism, spiritualism, woman's rights, equality, 
miscegenation, etc. Why, look at it, where the head 
ought to be I can see nothing but what phrenologists 
would call a big bump of cupidity: the rest of the thing 
is all belly. It looks to me for all the world like one of 
these big ticks I've seen hanging to the ear of a dog. 

"Madam, don't you begin to think that * Indignata' 
has played sharp on you ? Why, as soon as she saw the 
deformity of this creature, she made haste to shift it off 
of her hands. How on earth did she fool you so ? She 
must surely have had it dressed up in baby clothes. May- 
be she showed you a picture of it in * Harper,' that vulgar 
satire upon literature and taste. But the question now 
is, not how you got it, but, how will you get rid of it ? 
This I fear will be hard to answer. I don't think any- 
body about here will relieve you of your charge. Madam, 
I pity you from the bottom of my heart, but I can't take 
it. Why, I'm a bachelor, at best not very popular with 
the ladies, but if you should send me round carrying this 
creature in my arms they would run at the very sight 
of me. But even if I were doomed to be a bachelor for- 
ever (I don't believe that though) I might, to save myself 
from the odium of being utterly friendless, be persuaded, 
in lieu of something better, to pet a snake, a toad, or 
even a lizard, but not that thing. 

"I am inclined to think, when the other members see 
you in your present unenviable predicament, they will 
•hardly be willing to admit that you are the association. 
•And should you be able to prove that you are, I think at 
'least many of them will be anxious to prove that they 
are not. I have not taken the pains to trace the pater- 



2-B^ TIIR GREAT TRIAL. 

nity of this monster, but think I could guess it in at l^ast 
three guesses. I don't think that there are but three brains 
in the world which could have produced it, and these are 
Charles Sumner's, Lucy Stone's, and Beast Butler'Sv 
Madam, I think, if you will write to these parties, and 
tell them that you have accidentally picked up a stray 
child which bears a strong resemblance to their other 
children, they will come after it. Should you write to 
the Beast, don't forget to tell him that it has had a heap 
of experience in handling spoons; if you write to Lucy 
or Charles, it willonly be necessary to state the fact that 
the creature is getting into bad odor here, and that it 
will not be able much longer to maintain a position of 
equality. 

" I will make one other suggestion for your benefit, 
and then I will be done with the thing. Will it not be 
the best thing you can do with this monster to lay it 
quietly in the grave of scorn which I've dug for it, and 
let silence sprinkle over it the dust of forgetfulness ? 

" I will now turn gladly from this subject to one more 
congenial to my thoughts and feelings. A ' Member' 
says her appeal is made for the dead, and not for the 
living. My appeal is for the living, and not for the dead; 
I thank God the fame of the dead is not dependent upan 
Vanity Fairs, memorial associations, or upon the patriot- 
ism and benevolence of an avaricious and infidel age! An 
age in which every virtue, human or divine, is measured 
by its weight in gold. No, the fame of the dead at least 
is secure. Their battle-fields are their monuments, and 
their heroic deeds the imperishal)ie records of their fame. 
Manassah can no more die than that Thermopylse could 
die. And although ages have elapsed since that mem* 
orable battle, Leonidas and his Spartan band live as 
freshly in the memory of man to-day as they did the day 
after their glorious defense of Greece. A truth was born 
there, and truth can never die. Greece herself was born 
at Thermopylffi. She learnt that day the invincibility of 
patriotic heroism. It was that truth which made her 
armies invincible, her governments wise and liberal, h6r 
laws just, their administration equitable, Ler social life 
mild and genial, her fine arts the highest models of beauty^ 



THE FOURTH WITJSUSS. 239 

and her civilizatiou the noblest type of heathen civiliza- 
tion. 

" But when Greece forgot Thermopylae, and the truth 
which was born at Thermopylae, she soon fell a victim to- 
intestine broils and fratricidal wars. Yes, when she 
learned to trust in the glory of her power and the splen- 
dor of her riches, the light of her glory went out, and 
her money gods perished. But the truth which madei 
her glorious and prosperous did not die with Greece. 
When it ceased to be appreciated where it was born, \v 
fled to more congenial climes. Leonidas lived again in 
the Scipios and Bruti of Rome, in the Harapdens of 
England, and in that nol>lest of all heroes and patriots — 
George Washington. Thermopylae lived again at Lex- 
ington ; it lived again at Manassah. Like Thermopylae 
and Le.xington, Manassah will live forever. And while 
it lives, the Confederate dead can never die. Your Vanity 
Fairs will die. Only an age prolific of monsters could 
produce such a perversion of truth. When truth shall 
live again, as it most assuredly will, oblivion will draw 
around them her dark curtain, that man may not always 
have to blush for his kind. Your memorial associations 
too will die, unless they are honorably connected with 
the imperishable fame of the dead. 

; " This and only this, has been my object: that we 
might live in the memory of future generations as a 
people who were worthy of the virtue, the truth, and the 
heroism of the brave men who made Manassah and the 
hundred battle-fields of the Confederacy immortal. I 
was willing, to the utmost of my ability, to contribute to 
this object ; but I was not willing to see the memory of 
the dead mocked, and the truth which was born in their 
death insulted, while the blood-stains of their martyrdom 
were still fresh upon the battle-fields of their glory. 

"A Soldier." 

But the Creator, in his infinite mercy, determined in 
the counsels of eternity that man should again be free 
and happy ; not indeed by force, not by constraint. He 
desires the love and obedience of his creatures; but he 
will not force it. He wants nian to serve him, not from 



240 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

necessity, but from choice. He puts before him good and 
evil, and while it is his will for man to choose the good, 
he leaves him free to choose evil. To secure this end, 
he has made obedience to his laws the condition of 
man's happiness and prosperity. Not only his happiness 
in the future world, but in this world. For six thousand 
years he has been gathering the proofs of this truth. 
The history of the world during that long time has been 
a perpetual demonstration of it. The prosperity and hap- 
piness of every people who have obeyed the laws re- 
vealed to them by Heaven is a historical fact, which 
cannot be disputed. The awful destruction of those 
nations which disobeyed the commands of- God, and 
violated the laws of religion and virtue which he had 
revealed to them, stand as conclusive proof of this truth. 

The history of the Jews is the most striking, because 
God, in the ways of his providence, did make to them 
clearer manifestations of himself, and fuller revelations 
of his will and purposes to mankind. He chose them as 
a peculiar people, and blessed them with especial and 
peculiar favors. He sent them leaders and lawgivers 
whose commissions were sanctioned by the most impress- 
ive and convincing manifestations of his wisdom, his 
power, and his glory. 

In the garden of Eden, Adam gazes with wonder and 
astonishment upon Eve, a created miracle of God. The 
inhabitants of the ark look out upon the flood of waters, 
sweeping over the face of the earth, and swallowing up 
hills and mountains, and tremble at the omnipotence of the 
Deity, and adore the mercy which preserves them who 
have not forgotten to honor him. The servant of God 
stretches his rod of faith over the sea, and it opens like 
a gate to let his people pass. The enemies of God, trust- 
ing in their own power and glory, enter the deep chasm, 
and its watery walls fall on them and crush them beneath 
its ruins. Where now is the Egyptian host, with all its 
pomp, its splendor, and its power ? where their proud 
boasts? The angry wave, as if in mockery, spits out 
their vaunting breath in frothy bubbles ; the people trem- 
ble while Sinai thunders forth the ten commandments; 
the proud king of Babyhia is driven from his throne to 



THE FOURTH WITNESS. 241 

live with the beasts of the field, until he learns to obey 
the king of heaven. Then the Almighty bestows on 
him power, and wisdom, and happiness. His son forgets 
these things, and insults the God of Israel by using holy 
vessels, consecrated to his service, at his impious feast. 
A mysterious hand writes, in letters of fire, his doom on 
the wall. 

Where is Babylon, with all her riches and her glory? So 
deep was she buried beneath the judgments of an angry 
God, that even her grave can't be found. Where is 
Jerusalem, the City of the Great King? where is its 
splendid temple, with its glorious service? " O Jerusa- 
lem, Jerusalem ! thou that killest the prophets and 
stonest them that were sent unto thee, how often would 
I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen 
gathereth her brood, but ye would not !" 

The children of Israel the Almighty had chosen to be 
a peculiar people. He had blessed them above all other 
people in the world. He had brought them out of their 
enemies' land with a high band and an outstretched arm. 
His pillar of cloud guided them by day, and by night 
his pillar of fire. The sea got out of the way of 
Jehovah when he went l>efore his people to lead them. 
He drove out other nations, and gave to his people a land 
flowing with milk and honey. Under the protecting care 
of Heaven, these people enjoyed a freedom and happi- 
ness such as no people in the world could boast of. But 
the Jews, like the king of Babylon, forgot their Creator 
and benefactor. The priesthood, to whom was committed 
the sacred mysteries of the temple, forgot the God whom 
they pretended still to worship. They indeed continued 
to observe all the ordinances of religion, to collect tithes 
of mint, cummin and anise, but the weightier matters of 
the law, truth, judgment and justice, they forgot. They 
laid upon men beavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, 
but they would not touch them with their little finger. 

Such was the wickedness of these people, when Christ 
came to earth, that when he commanded the one who 
was without sin to cast the first stone at an adulteress 
nobody could be found. But the day of judgment came 
upon the wickecl citv, and it perished. Christ's predictions 
L ' 21 



242 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

were literally fulfilled. " For the day shall oome upon 
thee that thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee and 
compass thee around and keep thee on every side, and 
shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children 
witliin thee, and they shall not leave in thee one stone 
upon another." 

Not long after this prophecy the Roman army com- 
menced digging their trenches about the doomed city. 
For months the terrible siege was kept up. The Jews 
inside the city, divided into hostile factions, destroyed one 
another whenever their enemies gave them a little re- 
spite. Famine crept into their midst, and disease and 
death in every horrible shape. For months and months 
did these judgments of Heaven consume this proud and 
rebellious city. At last the crash of ruin came, and the 
city was razed to the ground, and its very foundation 
plowed up. 

Since that time the Jews, despised and friendless, have 
wandered over the earth a hissing and a by-word among 
the nations, and unto the Gentiles has been given the 
inheritance which they were unworthy of. Ay, a richer 
inheritance than theirs has been committed to us. The 
gospel of Christ with all its promises of freedom, of hap- 
piness, and prosperity, has been given to us. A better 
land than the promised land of the Jews is ours. 
Stretching from ocean to ocean, its extent is almost limit- 
less, its innumerable valleys and plains inexhaustibly 
fertile. 

Hundreds of years ago the persecuted exiles from other 
nations found an asylum on its shores. They, true to 
their faith, dedicated it to freedom and Christianity. They 
accepted the Bible as their religion, and yielding to its 
influences on their social and political institutions, they 
presented to the world a government different from all 
other governments which had ever existed before. It 
recognized the right of no power in the world to rule. 
It declared that there was no power in the world which 
had authority to use man for any purpose, or in any 
manner, which would violate his personal freedom and 
individual happiness. 

It declared that man is a child of God, and, as such. 



THE FOURTH WITNESS. 243 

entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; that 
no person or power had the right to take his life, his 
liberty, or his property, without his consent, either by 
force or fraud ; no kin": to rule by divine right ; no legis- 
lature to rule by fraud or force ; no president to be our 
ruler by usurpation ; no bondautocracy to buy the servants 
of the people to make laws for their special benefit ; no 
golden gods to make man the slave of cupidity and 
greedy selfishness, so that he might be thus fitted to be 
the slave of kings and princes. In a word, it recognized 
the divine truths taught by the New Testament, that 
man is the child of God and the brother of his fellow 
man. 

It was this divine principle which united the colonies 
in their memorable struggle against European despotism. 
It was this spirit of truth which united the States in a 
federal union. It was this spirit of truth which kept 
those States for years and years bound together in do- 
mestic peace and tranquillity. Lying politicians and 
hireling priests tell us it was the spirit of power and 
despotism which made our union, and that must be kept 
up to preserve it. Oh, no, that was the kind of union 
England wanted to make with us; the same kind of 
union she had with Ireland : a union in which one part 
commands, another part obeys. 

England wanted our fathers to pay a penny a pound 
on all the tea they drank. The}^ refused to do it. Why, 
that was a mighty little thing ! Only a few persons 
were able to drink tea in those times, and they did not 
drink much. Our fathers drank tea Sunday morning for 
breakfast; a penny a pound on that would be a mere 
matter of form. The people could pay it, and not feel it. 
But our fathers said God had made man free, and en- 
dowed him with the right to live and hold property, and 
to preserve his happiness in his own way ; that he was 
answerable for his life only at the tribunal of justice ; 
that no power in the world had a right to take his prop- 
erty without his consent, by theft or robbery, or that 
legalized robbery called taxation. Thus, for the sake of 
right, they went into a war and fought it out to the 
bitter end. They went to war with the greatest power 



244 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

on earth, and, at that time, the best government the world 
ever saw. 

Mr. Webster, who was good authority in this country 
years ago, when polities meant virtue and patriotism, 
and not lying and stealing, as it does to-day, said that 
our fathers fought eight years against a preamble and 
resolution. Virginia and South Carolina refused, at the 
risk of life and property, to have a union with England, 
whose king they accepted as their rightful sovereign, 
because England claimed the right, by reason of that 
union, to make them pay a penny a pound on tea. 

And yet lying politicians, usurpers and tyrants, belie 
the record of history and insult the common sense of 
mankind, by declaring to the world, both by their word 
and actions, that Virginia and Carolina, after fighting 
eight years with England to break up such a union, did 
turn right around and form such a union with Massachu- 
setts and New York. Ay, that they did form a union 
by which they authorized and empowered those States to 
overrun their country by invasion, to make it a heap of 
ruins, to murder their people, reduce them to a degraded 
slavery, and impose on them the most intolerable des- 
potism the world ever saw. 

Was ever the world insulted by a more shameless or 
more barefaced lie I Can anybody be so lost to all sense 
of reason and justice as to believe it? Or have usurp- 
ers and tyrants only invented these monstrous falsehoods 
to excuse not only the wrong which they are doing Vir- 
ginia and Carolina, but the crimes they are perpetrating 
against the genius of American liberty and those inalien- 
able rights of mankind which are the foundation of all 
liberty and happiness and prosperity? If a people can 
be so lost to all notions of truth and justice otf to believe 
falsehoods which have not even the shadow of a proba- 
bility to sustain them, then indeed has the Almighty, the 
God of truth, given them up to a strong delusion, to 
believe a lie, that their destruction maybe sure and their 
damnation just. 

These are the same people who yesterday cursed Vir- 
ginia and South Carolina, because they had by a degrad- 
ing system of slavery reduced the negro to a condition 



THE FOURTH WITNESS, 245 

of ignorance and barbarism like that of the brute, and 
to-day swear that tliat same ignorant and imbruted negro 
is equal to the American white man, the only man who 
has by his practice ever demonstrated the capacity of 
man for self-government. These are the people who in 
the name of freedom and humanity have forced on Vir- 
ginia and Carolina governments more infamously tyran- 
nical than heathen nations or even barbarians ever 
forced on their conquered provinces. Military despotism 
was considered among heathen nations the worst form 
of tyranny ; but Yirginia and Carolina have begged 
these modern crusaders in the cause of freedom and hu- 
manit}^ for a military despotism, in preference to the in- 
famous tyranny which they have established over them. 

The time will come when the children of these people 
will seek to wash out with their tears these foul stains 
upon their country's history, unless eternal justice in the 
meantime washes them out with the blood of the 
tyrants who made them. 

If to oppose such usurpation and crimes as these makes 
a man a rebel, I thank God I offered my life and my 
little property to prevent this horrid despotism which 
has been established on the ruins of my country's liber- 
ties. Let them call me rebel and traitor. George Wash- 
ington and John Adams were called traitors and rebels ; 
Benedict Arnold and the Carolina tories were truly loyal. 
I did not fight to destroy the union our fathers had made. 
That union was born of liberty and of love. I fought 
to keep that union from being changed into one of hate, 
of power, of despotism. I did not fight for a separation 
from the old government because I did not love its forms 
and the spirit of its liberties ; but because I saw an 
infidel faction who had publicly trampled the Bible under 
their feet, and denounced the constitution of this country 
as a league with death and a covenant with hell, get 
possession of the government and declare to the world 
that it was their purpose to use all its power, and to 
usurp all other powers which might be necessary, to de- 
stroy its freedom and make it a despotism, A faction 
whose god is mammon, and whose religion i« hatred, 
war, revenge, power, despotism, divorce, child-murder, 

21* 



246 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

adultery, lying, stealing", in a word, every sin which 
dishonors God, and every crime which disgraces human 
nature. A faction whose religion and politics have made 
whore-houses one of the institutions of the country. 

While they are harping on negro slavery, they are 

building up and protecting, by their public laws, prison 

houses of hell, where not only the bodies of the pretty 

daughters of the poor are sold to the lusts and passions 

of men, but where even their souls are buried in the 

grave of despair. A few brief years they revel in 

wantonness, and then, in the anguish of their souls, they 

curse God and die. Ay, a faction whose religion and 

politics have made the big cities themselves licensed 

whore-houses, where fornication, gilded with the dazzling 

gewgaws of wealth, and protected by its illegitimate 

power, flaunts its insolent triumph in the face of day. 

A faction who used the power of the government to 

wage a war of subjugation and conquest against a people 

whose liberties it had been made to protect. A faction 

who have excelled heathens and barbarians in the infamy 

and degradation of the tyranny which they have imposed 

on that people. A faction who, in the name of freedom 

and humanity, have destroyed from the face of the earth 

a million of African slaves, and turned thousands and 

tens of thousands out upon the world penniless, and 

bomeless, and friendless. A faction who, immediately 

ifter they got the power, sent their pious preachers and 

nissionaries to rent cotton farms at half price, and to 

hire negroes at proportionable wages. These pious 

hieves raised their crops and sold them, and then went 

ff leaving the poor negro to beg or starve, as they had 

>een in the habit of doing their poor white trash at home. 

l faction which has boldly and unblushingly declared 

heir purpose to use the negro as a political power to 

nslave the white man. A faction which has used the 

whole power of the government, ay, despotic power, 

which the government never had, to rob labor and reduce 

it to beggary and starvation, in order to support in all 

heir licentious dissipations and drunken extravagance 

an upstart aristocracy. A faction who have permitted a 

half dozen of the yard-stick and goose-quili nobility to 



THE FOURTH WITNESS. 247 

force OQ the people, whom they pretend to represent, 
contrary to their wishes, a drunken butcher for their 
president and ruler. 

I did not fight for slavery, nor did I ever approve the 
plots which the slave power of the South were constantly 
laying to organize a separate government, in which 
negro slavery would be the mud-sill of their aristocracy. 
Such schemes they were aided and abetted in by Bea3t 
Butler and other Northern Democrats with Southern 
principles. As far as the negro was concerned, slavery 
as it existed in the South before the war, and more 
especially as modified in South Carolina, was the best 
system of slavery in the world; considering tGe good of 
the slave only, it was better than the slavery of England 
or France, or the Northern States of this country. The 
condition of the negro slave of South Carolina was 
vastly better than the condition of the white slaves of 
this country is to-day. The negro slave there was sure 
of comfortable and healthy food and clothing, from child- 
hood till death. He was sure of good nursing and kind 
attention during sickness or accidents. He had his odd 
tinies for recreation, and opportunities to provide for 
himself the little luxuries of life. 

The white slaves of this country, including the 
millions of intelligent laborers, mechanics, and all, work 
hard, and live with a scanty supply of both food and 
clothing. Political thieves and gamblers, by taxation 
and a thousand other schemes of legislative robbery, 
plunder them of their just hire. While they are in good 
health they can barely supply themselves and their 
families with the necessaries of life ; when they get sick 
they are left to take care of themselves, and when they 
get old and decrepit, their task-masters turn them loose 
upon the poor, bare-picked commons of public charity. 

Negro slavery in the South had many ugly features, 
some outrageously wicked practices. These abuses good 
men in the South deplored as much as anybody, and 
were anxious to remedy them. But Northern abolition- 
ists, with a few exceptions infidels, madmen, and fools, 
prevented us from discussing the matter among our- 
selves at all. For we knew that if ever we divided, 



248 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

these fauatics would force oti us uogro equality, — a crime 
against nature, which no white man whose soul is uoj 
depraved and whose mind is not utterly debauched, car. 
think of without disgust. But if man must be a slave, 
I say even now, let that slave be the negro, and not th^ 
white man. 

I am sure that God has made the negro unequal to the 
white man, and that men and devils can't make him 
equal. These same men and devils who are trying to 
make the negro equal to the white man are trying to put 
the negro above the white man. They know that if you 
put them on an equal footing, the negro will go to the 
bottom, where he belongs, and therefore do they want to 
fasten him on top of the white man by the arbitrary laws 
of power. These same men and devils are trying to 
unsex woman and make a man out of her. These same 
men and devils want to make a mixed race of slaves by 
crossing the negro with the poor white trash, for the use 
of that mean, low-born, upstart aristocracy, the bondaut- 
ocracy. 

Yes, poor white trash ; the men whose garments are 
often poor and patched, and soiled with tiie sweat of 
labor. Yes, the millions of plowholders and mechanics, 
the fruits of whose honest toils are taken by lying, 
thieving, political factions, to pay for their drunken 
bacchanalian revelries, and the grand pomposities of 
their bondautocratic masters. 

But the worst feature of slavery was its aristocracy. 
By that I mean, more especially, its political power as 
a monopoly of wealth. As such, it was mean, dishonest, 
and unpatriotic. It was anxious for the war, and helped 
to bring it on, because it thought war meant separation, 
and that in a separate government its relative power 
would be vastly increased. 

It craved, however, only the privilege of bringing the 
war on. It was perfectly willing to leave it to otiMjr 
people to do the fighting and pay the costs. Had the 
slave power of the South been liberal and patriotic, w^e 
could never have been defeated. But this power was 
rich, and the rich can neither be liberal nor patriotic. 
The rich worship mammon as their god, and those wha^ 



THE FOURTH WITNESS. 249 

worship that god have no soul. And on no altar but 
that of the human soul can the fires of patriotism be 
kindled. While the negro race is destined to serve tlie 
white man forever, slavery, as an aristocratic institution, 
as a political power, is gone forever. 

Mongrelism and miscegenation are only the lascivious 
dreams of infidel whoremongervS. A thought so filthy is 
not entertained by any decent mind. The negro, despite 
all the efforts of usurpers and tyrants, will go back where 
he belongs, to a condition of inferiority and virtual serv- 
itude. This will be his condition until he leaves the 
white man's country. The white man will never meet 
him on terms of equality. He will never mix with him, 
never, never, never. When the great working masses of 
this country shall be fully waked up on this subject ; 
when they shall realize fully the infernal plot which has 
been laid to make a race of mules of them, by mixing 
them with the negro jackass, in order that they may- 
be fitted for perpetual slavery, I say when these things 
shall be better understood by the common people, it 
will be more than a man's head is worth to hint such a 
thing as mongrelism, even by the fine name of misce- 
genation. 

Had we succeeded in establishing our independence 
there would have been a terrible reckoning. Union men 
in our midst, who never had any faith in man's fitness to 
govern himself, who had been educated in the political 
faith of old John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, and 
always believed in monarchy and aristocracy rather than 
in democracy, would have escaped. But Union men so 
called, who went with our enemies from the motives of 
cowardice or cupidity or from fear of losing their property, 
secessionists, who were blatant for separation and war 
nntil war came, and then shirked out of it, contractors, 
speculators, thieves' and plunderers, who got fat upon the 
blood of their country, and got rich out of its necessities, 
— Woe unto them! Upon such men as these we would 
have saddled the expenses of the war, and made them 
pay every dollar of it. 

Night after night was this question discussed by the 
private soldiers, around the camp fires. Nor was ever 

L* 



250 THE GREAT TRIAL, 

any question discussed about which their opinions so 
well agreed and so firmly fixed. 

Bat the war terminated differently, if it has ended at 
all. The lying infidel abolition faction, who brought it 
on the country, don't want it to stop. It has been a 
fruitful harvest to them. It has put into their hands that 
great national blessing, the public debt, which puts into 
their hands the disbursement of five hundred millions of 
dollars every year, one-half of which is stealings accord- 
ing to their own count, and according to mine about nine- 
tenths of it. It keeps in the hands of their masters, the 
bondholders, the whole political power of the government. 
It enables them all to get rich by gambling with the 
great moneyed monopolies, and taking the labor of the 
country to pay the expenses. 

These greedy extortioners who plundered us during the 
war, with ihe negro, have possession in the South. They 
can take any oath or make any professions. They have no 
god but mammon, no country but their own farms. They 
would not hesitate to sell their liberties, their country, 
or even their souls, to the devil for money. These consti- 
tute our new aristocracy. How much are they like their 
brother bondholders in the North. They have set up 
mammon for god, and command everybody to worship him. 

He rules all the political institutions of the country: 
the legislature, the courts, and the churches. The su- 
preme court of West Virginia, the creature and tool of this 
infamous power, have decided recently that the rebels 
had a right to take the life of loyal men, to kill Union 
soldiers or home-guards, because as a general thing they 
were only poor white trash ; but if the rebel army took 
any property, a horse or cattle from anybody, whether 
they were Union men or rebels, that the party who lost 
this property, even if he himself had been a rebel, had a 
right to sue any private in the rebel army, and make him 
pay for it, because (and this is their theory all the time) 
men who own horses and cattle and Other property are 
rich men. The rights to life and personal security are 
matters of small moment, and may be violated with im- 
punity, but the rights of property are sacred and holy, 
and no condition of things can excuse their violation. A 



THE FOURTH WITNESS. 251 

rich rebel, who furnished four substitutes for the rebel 
army and fifty thousand dollars in money, has a right to 
sue a poor private in the rebel army for a horse which a 
rebel general impressed into the rebel service. 

The courts of this bastard State are full of these suits. 
Ag-ainst myself and other privates in the rebel army 
there are suits of this class, covering- up all our little pro- 
perty. We wrote to General Grant, insisting that under 
the stipulations of our surrender we were entitled to pro- 
tection from these barefaced robberies. His answer was 
substantially this, thatr the commander-in-chief of the 
United States Army was not under any obligation nor 
did he have any authority to protect those who were 
wronged and oppressed; that he was not bound to keep 
promises he m.ade to enemies, who had surrendered upoa 
the faith of these promises. That on the contrary it was 
his duty to defend and protect the oppressor, and to com- 
pel those whom he had put in their power to submit to 
such wrongs. He added that if we had been generals 
in the army, or great men, or rich men, he would see 
that we were not wronged; but he considered it a piece of 
impudent presumption for poor private soldiers to ask 
him to stoop to notice them. 

" Why, don't you know," he continued, "that I did not 
take any account of private soldiers in my own army, 
except to order my subordinate officers to pile up their 
dead carcasses heaps on heaps ?" How sadly are the 
times out cf joint, to be sure ! How are things misplaced ! 
How are they miscalled ! Am I crazy, or is it the world 
around me? Am I walking on my head, or is it other 
people ? Is my judgment perverted, or has the world per- 
verted the truth until everything is in the wrong place, 
and everything called by the wrong name? Has the 
Almighty in his anger given us up to a strong delusion 
to believe a lie, so that everything which is false looks 
to us like truth, and every truth like falsehood ? 

Compare for a moment General Grant with General 
Lee, not in the style of fine panegyric, or sharp criticism, 
but in that plain common-sense manner which w^ adopt 
in looking at our common business matters. The one 
was born low — and by that I don't mean born poor, for 



252 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

poverty is the companion of the hig-hest nobility of soul, — 
but I mean that he was born with low and brutish in- 
stincts. Fortune, ever capricious and whimsical, seized 
him, and dragged him through blood and carnage and 
death, not to greatness or glory, but to power. His 
small narrow brain is made diizzy by the height to which 
it has been so suddenly and unexpectedly lifted. 
Wrapped in the mantle of ignorance and conceit, mis- 
taking the accidents of fortune for great talent, he already 
imagines himself a Caesar, Without any heart to feel 
either for man or beast, he would be a cold, calculating 
politician if he had mind enough to make calculations. 
But being without either education or common sense, he 
has been overreached and duped by that smallest of all 
the little politicians, Washburne, a man who has edu- 
cation enough to teach, but not brains enough to manage, 
a small country school. 

Through Washburne, he was recommended to the 
master manufacturing monopolies, and through them to 
the goose-quill and yard-stick nobility, as one who would 
be a pliant tool in their hands, to consolidate and per- 
petuate their power. This insolent power, speaking to 
the people as if they owned them, bids them take this 
man Grant to be their president and ruler (this is their 
own language). General Grant in the instincts of his 
soul is low and vulgar. In his heart he is cold, selfish, 
aristocratic and cruel. Vain and conceited, he likes to 
have power, so that he may lord it over his fellow-man. 

In one respect only is he democratic ; in his hollow 
professions of friendship for the people, and in his use 
of low demagogue phrases, which the politicians of this 
country have used so long and so successfully to 
humbug the people, and make out of them tools to work 
their own ruin. The friends of freedom and equality 
have selected this man Grant to build up and consoli- 
date and make perpetual a great moneyed power in this 
country. They selected him, too, because they feared 
the people would vote against them in the coming elec- 
tions, and because they supposed that Grant at the head 
of the army could hold on to the power, whether the 
people wished it or not. 



TUE FOURTH WITNESS. 253 

This moneyed power, which this lying political faction 
are trying to build up in this country iu the name of 
freedom and equality, is to-day the foundation of every 
aristocracy in the world, and has been the basis of every 
monarchy and aristocracy which has ever existed in the 
world. It has been the cause, too, of all the political 
and social inequalities which have ever existed in the 
Avorld. One would suppose that some sense pf shame, 
and some little regard for the common sense of mankind, 
would restrain the people from doing the very thing 
w^hich they have been declaiming against for years and 
years. In the name of freedom they have made slaves 
out of the best people iu the South, and in the name of 
equality they purpose to make a mudsill out of the labor- 
ing people of the North, and on that mudsill to build a 
great moneyed aristocracy. 

Grant is the tool of this aristocracy, its representative 
man. Ay, the very personification of this upstart 
bondautocracy, for he himself did like a mushroom spring 
from a dunghill over night, without brains, without 
heart, without modesty or shame. Those who believe 
that the American people will accept such a creature as 
this Caesar, and consent to be the serfs of him and his 
bondautocratic masters, know nothing about the hopes 
and aspirations of thirty-five millions of freemen, their 
mission and their destiny. 

This age, which is one vast lie, one universal perver- 
sion of truth, calls this upstart aristocrat, with his ignor- 
ant conceit and arrogant pretensions, the friend of 
freedom and equality, and calls Robert E. Lee the friend 
of aristocracy. Like servile Rome, it applauds Anthony 
the licentious usurper, the libertine tyrant, and makes war 
on Brutus, the patriot who had survived his country's 
love of liberty. 

Lee was born noble, — not rich in money, I mean, but 
with those noble elements of character which make him 
w^orthy of our respect, our admiration, and our confi- 
dence. Like his father before him, he is brave, and 
chivalrous, and talented, and upright and noble. No 
intemperance of word or deed mars the stainless purity 
of his private life. And his public career, the most busy, 

22 



254 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

stormy, and checkered, has won the admiration even of 
bis enemies. 

Without men, without military accoutrements, without 
the munitions of war, he did by his talent, his heroism, 
and by the ardent patriotism his self-sacrificing example 
created among his countrymen, baffle for years the over- 
whelming powers of the greatest military people in the 
world, encouraged, aided and sustained by the public 
sentiment of the world, and by its positive aid. A mes- 
senger brings to Grant news that his line of battle is 
broken, and unfeelingly and indifferently he answers, 
" Pile on the men." A messenger comes to Lee, and tells 
him a breach has been made in our fortifications, and the 
enemy in overwhelming numbers are rushing through. 
No cold senseless glare of strong drink, but the spark of 
genius, kindles in the hero's eye. He orders a tried and 
trusty brigade of veterans to fill, not with numbers, but 
with Spartan valor, the fatal breach. 

A few days ago you might have seen him sitting 
quietly at his tent, so modest and unassuming, so defer- 
ential and polite to the poorest and meanest man in the 
world, so plain and unadorned in his manner and dress, 
that you would not have known, unless some one told 
you, that it was General Lee. It was not General Lee ; 
it was a citizen of the great democracy of the western 
world. 

He vindicates his democracy, not by prating of free- 
dom and equality, but by treating his fellow-man as a 
brother, recognizing in him, no matter how liumble or 
obscure, a child of God. But look at him now, see him 
now, see him ride along that veteran line of battle : 'tis 
General Lee, now a war god, Mars himself These men 
were always brave, but with this Leonidas at their head 
they are Spartans, they are invincible. They have 
already caught the deathless inspiration of their hero. 
A wild shout of heroic confidence answers their general, 
when he asks them, Can you retake these lost works ? 
The heroic inspiration, which he himself had started, 
swollen by the flood of feeling rushing from a thousand 
brave hearts, comes sweeping back and bears him away 
on its bosom. 



TUE FOURTH WITNESS. 255 

How mighty is the human soul when the shores of 
mortality are broken down! How like a vast river run- 
ning over its narrow baniss, and covering the earth with 
its rushing waves ! The great captain is lost in the 
heroic grandeur of the hour. " Forward !" falls from the 
warrior's lip; " Forward, men; I will lead you, and, if 
need be, die at your head !" Earth has no nobler place 
for a hero to die. 

But what's the matter ? That line as if by instinct 
pauses — it halts. Hath sudden fear seized them ? Is the 
day lost? A moment's surprise, and a voice runs along 
the line : " General Lee to the rear ! General Lee to the 
rear ! We belong to our country, to liberty ; we are 
ready to die for its truths, we are ready to throw our- 
selves in the fatal breach, and wall it up with our dead 
bodies. Ten thousand of our brave men will be left 
behind us, to fill another breach and fight other battles. 
But only one leader have we, great and gifted and noble. 
Only one Robert E. Lee ! One only, fit to lead in the 
long and bloody struggle before us. We are ready to 
die, "but he must live to fight the battles of his country 
and liberty ! " 

In these hotirs of highest inspiration, man is divine. 
When he has made up his mind to die for his home, his 
wife, his little ones, for truth, for God. and his country, 
his actions are noble and his words prophetic. Methinks 
I see that battle line, martyrs to truth, for they are going 
to oJBFer themselves a sacrifice upon the altar of their 
country, they are going to pile their dead bodies like a 
bulwark before the proud wave of invasion, Methinks 
I see the fires of the human soul burning up the film of 
futurity which covers the mortal eye, and as the future 
breaks on their view, they see Robert E. Lee leading 
his countrymen through the wilderness of defeat, and, 
like Moses, striking from the solid rock the living re- 
freshing waters of truth. Two subordinate officers rode 
up to the general, seized his horse, and led him back to 
the rear. The hero is conquered at last, subdued by the 
love and confidence of his fellow-men. A flood of tears 
gushes from his eyes ; he weeps like a woman. But another 
breach is made in the rebel lines, a wider one than before. 



256 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

The last bulwark has fallen, the last battle line broken, 
the last scattered fragment of that gallant little array has 
surrendered. The unobstructed wave of invasion sweeps 
on, leaving in its wake a barren waste of subjugation 
and slavery. 

Again the old hero rushes to the front. Thrilled with 
a higher inspiration, he gives a nobler command, he 
utters a diviner truth, " Go to work." By his own ex- 
ample and with his own hands (he never commanded his 
fellows to go where he was not willing to lead) he vindi- 
cated the truth his lips had uttered. Labor has at last 
found a hero and champion. The greatest of living men 
has bowed at her shrine, and offers daily on h*r altar the 
sweat of his brow and the works of his hands. With 
such a hero for her champion, labor will vindicate the 
dignity of her calling and the majesty of her power. 
Children of toil, poor and despised as you have ever 
been, robbed and plundered as you have been for six 
thousand years by usurpers and tyrants, kings and aris- 
tocracies, bondautocratic thieves and their hireling tools, 
the political factions and a hypocritical priesthood, wake 
up, the tocsin of your liberty has sounded. Her battle 
flag, "Go to work" written on its folds, has been flung 
to the breeze by the greatest of living heroes, and the 
highest type of man ever given to the world. The 
usurpers who have seized the government, and who are 
now using, not its legitimate authority, but, instead there- 
of, their own usurped power to degrade labor to the level 
of the serfdom of Europe, and to make it like it is in 
Europe, the basis, the mud-sill of a great moneyed 
power, these usurpers I say denounce Robert E. Lee as a 
traitor and rebel. 

And the same upstart tyrants, in the halls of your na- 
tional legislature, denounced the mechanic, the plow- 
holder, and the millions of honest working men, whose 
drops of sweat poured together is the mighty river 
which bears on its bosom the liberty, the prosperity, the 
greatness, the power and glory of this country, — they 
denounced as " poor white trash." These men's only 
offense is, that because their shirts are stained with the 
dust and sweat of labor, and because their persons are 



THE FOUHTII WJTNESS. 25T 

not adorned with the gaudy pinchbeck trinkets which 
gild tbe vulgar fashions of a bastard nobility, — 1 say, 
because these men don't submit willingly to the burdens 
imposed on them by their taskmasters, they are denounced 
as "poor white trash." 

This low^ slander, this foul insult to five-sixths of the 
people of this country, was uttered in the halls of their 
national legislature, and nobody answered it. 0, deep ' 
humiliation ! Three millions of half-civilized Africans 
have, in the popular branch of the American congress, 
one hundred and fifty representatives, who stand ready 
at the drop of a hat to rush to the defense of the negro, 
to defend him from any aspersion, just or unjust; but 
twenty-five millions of white laborers have not a single 
representative in that body, not a single solitary friend to 
defend them against the foul abuse of slander. 

These tyrants are themselves traitors: traitors to truth, 
to liberty, to God, and their country; traitors to those 
fundamental rights of man, life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness, which lie at the foundation of all political 
freedom and social happiness. 

R. E. Lee : how like Washington, for wisdom, for 
temperance, for moderation, for justice! Like Washing- 
ton, how evenly balanced! The elements are so mixed 
in him that nature may stand up and say to all the world, 
"This is a man." And yet his greatness is of a milder 
and softer type than that of Washington. Washington 
was born and reared under monarchical and aristocratic 
institutions. These had impressed themselves upon his 
character. There was a baronial cast about him.' He 
was a republican, and not a democrat. He had more 
faith in government than he had in the people. He went 
with Adams and Hamilton, and not with Jefferson. 
Nature had made him great and noble. He was the 
nobility of republicanism, its representative man. Lee 
is a democrat, the nobility of democracy. The nobility 
of monarchy is power justly and temperately used. The 
nobility of republicanism is liberty wisely restrained. 
The nobility of democracy is liberty set free ; it is the 
triumph of love, the victory of Christianity over the 
world. It recognizes man as the brother of his fellow- 
22* 



258 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

man, and God as the father of all. The badge of this 
nobility is the stains of sweat; its title is truth ; its labor 
love ; its fruits liberty, peace, and prosperity. Christ is 
its king, and heaven is its home. Earth, too, shall belts 
home, when man, tired of being cheated and deceived by 
preachers and politicians, shall accept the truth and 
obey it. 

The worst enemies of Christianity to-day are its pro- 
fessed friends, a hypocritical hireling priesthood. The 
worst enemies of freedom and equality are these political 
liars and thieves, who use these things as a trick to fool 
the people, and get into their own hands power and 
riches. The Greeleys, and Phillipses, and Beechers, and 
Butlers, who prate so loudly about freedom and equality, 
are using their utmost efforts to build up a military 
despotism on the ruins of American democracy, and on 
the degradation of its labor a moneyed power, the lowest, 
the meanest, and vilest, that ever robbed any community 
in the world. A bondautocracy, a bastard aristocracy, 
begotten by that lecherous devil, war, upon the body of 
his own daughter, licentiousness. 

Shall this harlot, which, although not yet seven 
years old, has already committed whoredom with the 
two great political factions of this country, be permitted 
to debauch the morals and destroy the liberties of thirty- 
five millions of freemen ? Can it be that men who mot 
me on a hundred battle-fields, and fought so nobly, fought 
for these evils, these follies, these crimes ? I do not, I can 
not, I dare not believe it. 

The battle-field is an awful place. In the very midst 
of it is death, eternity, the judgment ; without some cour 
viction of right men can't go there, can't stand th.efei 
How then can man be persuaded to do such evil deed?^-, 
when the harvest he reaps is death and mourning, an4 
slavery and debt, poverty and degradation ? How is it^ 
that men born to a common heritage of freedom, meij 
who ought to have been friends and brothers, should 
meet on a hundred battle-fields to murder each other, and 
destroy their common liberty? 

A hireling priesthood and lying political factions in the 
service of two heartless and unfeeling mone^^ed powers, 



TEE FOURTH WITNESS. 259 

the slavery of the South and the aristocracy of manu- 
facturJDg and commercial monopolies in the North, did 
for years pervert the truth, and tell lies to us from our 
very infancy, to make us hate each other. Then, by a 
trick of political legerdemain, they did divide us into 
hostile armies, to kill each other, our country and its 
liberties. The wrath of man shall praise me and the 
remainder of wrath will I restrain. 

The slave power of the South, w^hich struggled for so 
many years to bring on a war for selfish and ambitious 
purposes, succeeded at last. But how terribly it has 
been. deceived ! It thought the war would give it abso- 
lute power over half of the country, but instead of that 
the war destroyed its power entirely. As a political 
power in this country, it is gone forever. 

The advocates of white slavery at the North, the great 
aristocracy of bonds and banks, and taritfs, who live 
solely and exclusively to make money, who worship 
mammon as their god, have for years been laboring to 
bring on a war in this country, to destroy the power of 
negro slavery, because they found out that white slavery 
paid better. They, too, will be deceived. Their power 
too, must fall, and their slaves, too, will be free. The' 
hundreds of thousands of working men of the North, 
who fought to set the negro free, are not willing to be 
slaves themselves. If it was wrong for the half-civilized 
negro, born in servitude, to work for another, how much 
more so is it for the civilized Caucasian, born to the 
heritage of freedom, and whose fathers were free. No, 
no, they can't be persuaded to take these pills of slavery, 
although they are as nicely covered over with sweet 
promises of freedom and equality as the doctor's pills are 
covered with sugar. 

The great rebellion had a significance which has not 
been rightly interpreted. It had a meaning which has 
never been understood. There were four distinct powers 
engaged in that great contest. On the one hand stands 
the great slaveocracy of the South, disgraced by barbar- 
ous practices, which gave daily offense to Christian 
people, not bigoted churchmen, but to men who in their 
hearts believed in the sermon on the mount, so full of 



260 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

wisdom, benevolence, and charity. This power had con- 
trol of the morals and politics of that section for years 
and years. A hireling priesthood there, instead of 
rebuking the manifold sins of this institution, and 
endeavoring to reform it and modify its evils, so as to 
make it harmonize with the changed condition of things, 
attempted to defend all of its abuses. 

They forget that the same treatment which was right 
and proper for the negro, when he first came from his 
savage home, debased and degraded, was unjust and 
cruel toward their children, who had been for four 
generations educated in the principles and practices- of a 
people superior to all other people in the Christian virtues; 
knowledge, and wisdom, and virtue, and freedom. They 
forget that the negro had been for nearly three hun- 
dred years under these refining, ennobling, and Chris- 
tian influences. They ought to have remembered that 
their slaves w^ere vastly superior to the slaves of their 
fathers, morally and intellectually (can the advocates of 
white slavery say as much ?), and ought to have changed 
their treatment of them to suit their improved condition. 
But the hand of power is made of iron, and its heart too. 
It knows no feeling, no relenting. 

The political factions of that section were as subordi- 
nate to this great power as the priesthood. By trickery 
and fraud they so shaped the politics of the country as 
to identify the institutions of slavery, including all its 
evils, with the rights and liberties of the masses of the 
people. The political power of the North, for self and 
ambitious purposes, worked into its hands. For years 
and years, every political question in the South was 
decided by its relations to the slave power. At the same 
time there was a great aristocratic power springing up 
in the North, the same power in a different shape ; money 
invested, not in negroes, but in merchandise, manufac- 
tures, and financial cards, low gambling saloons, called 
banking houses. This power had its slaves, too; not in 
name, but in fact: its white slaves, men, women and 
children, who w^ork for it for half price. It pays half 
wages to its slaves, and out of the other half it builds 
up princely fortunes. The greatest of living authors 



THE FObllTIl WITNESS. 261 

and thinkers has said that it differs from negro slavery- 
only in this, that it does not require its masters to take 
care of their slaves when tbey have worn them out in 
their service. 

The priesthood in the North was as subservient to 
this power, as the priesthood in the South was to slave- 
ocracy. While they were cursing negro slavery, they 
were teaching false notions of religion and morality, 
which was making the vast masses of their own people 
slaves. They taught that power has a right to rule, 
that power, and not justice, was the thing to believe in 
and trust in ; and that since money is a universal power 
in the world, mankind ought to worship mammon as 
their god. They taught as the first lesson in the cate- 
chism, that the chief end of man is to get rich ; that 
for this purpose he has a right to rob the laborer of his 
hire, to cheat the innocent and unsuspecting, to plunder 
and oppress the poor, the widow, and the orphan, pro- 
vided he will give a liberal share of his ill-gotten treasure 
to themselves. 

Misled by these, heresies in morals, their politicians 
soon become professional liars and thieves. Skill in 
trickery and fraud soon became a lever of power, a badge 
of honor, and a cause of preferment. The political 
faction of the North, the tools of its great moneyed 
power, played into the hands of the political faction of 
the South, the tools of slavery. For years and years they 
carried on in national politics a great system of log-rolling. 
Slaveocracy would offer to bondautocracy tariffs and 
monopolies for fugitive slave laws. 

On the public record of the national legislature is 
found this disgraceful proposition. The politicians of 
the North did publicly offer to pledge themselves to the 
politicians of the South to catch their runaway nt^groes 
and send them back, if they would in lieu thereof give 
them protection to their manufactories. B}^ this system 
of bargain and sale, the Southern States were impover- 
ished, and their politicians found it an easy matter to 
persuade the people to hate a government whose policy 
was, and had been for years and years, to rob them for 
the benefit of Northern manufacturers. These same 



262 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

manufactories were creating by their monopoly of wealth 
inequalities great and unbearable in their own society. 

The masses of the people were, by degrees and insen- 
sibly, being reduced to slavery. They began to feel its 
oppressions. Hence it was an easy matter for northern 
politicians to excite the hatred of these people against 
negro slavery. In the North, slavery went in disguise ; 
men did not see it, although they felt it. In the South, 
slavery made no concealments. Whatever other faults 
it had, it was at least candid and manly. In this insti- 
tution, the open and professed advocates of slavery, the 
northern people who felt the oppression of slavery with- 
out understanding exactly how or where, found an 
unmistakable enemy. Hence this hatred of it. 

The money power of the North, taking advantage of 
this feeling among their own people, determined to change 
its tactics. 

They say. We have the power, the numbers, if we can 
unite our own people we can tax the whole country for 
our purposes. This slave power has hitherto permitted 
us to tax the labor of the country to a limited extent, 
but if we can get the power in our own hands we will 
tax it just as high as we please. 

The slaveocracy played into the hands of this faction 
so completely as to secure its success. The slave power, 
w^hich had control of the politics of the South, said. We 
will so manage our political matters as to secure the 
success of the abolitionists or a northern sectional party. 
Then we will have a confederacy in which cotton will be 
king, and negro slavery the basis of a great aristocracy. 
The feeling of the Southern people was this : We don't 
want disunion, we don't want a separate government. 
But we can't consent to be ruled by a government 
whose power is derived solely from one section of the 
country. New York and Pennsylvania have no right to 
propose a policy contrary to the wishes, and destructive 
of the rights of Virginia and South Carolina, and to 
force that policy on these two latter States simply 
because they have the power to do it. They have no 
right to take possession of the national government, 
which was created to defend and protect all the States,and 



THE FOURTH WITNESS. 2G3 

use its vast powers to promote their own prosperity and 
happiness at the expense of the other States. Tliese 
were the sentiments of the masses of the Southern people. 
Virginia announced them by a union majority of sixty 
thousand votes. 

But when Abe Lincoln, the poorest and weakest of 
the creatures of earth who ever attempted to mimic 
power and play the tyrant, commanded Virginia to 
furnish men and money to subjugate and enslave a part 
of the people of the United States, and to reduce a 
number of the States to dependent provinces to be ruled 
by military satraps, the proud old mother of States and 
statesmen, ever true to her love of liberty, answered the 
tyrant in the thunder tones of a hundred thousand ma- 
jority, Never, never! It may not be in the power of a 
few little States to prevent being overrun by invasion, 
but it is not in the power of tyrants to prevent the sons 
of liberty from washing out the foul foot-prints of inva- 
sion with their blood. 

Could a vote have been taken in the North at that 
time, upon the right of the national government to reduce 
the States of the South to subjugation, could they have 
been held up to the masses of the Northern people in 
the condition in which they are now, five out ofsix would 
have voted against it. Indeed, they did say, such of 
them at least as had any love for liberty and truth, We 
are opposed to disunion, but let us rather have that than 
tyranny and despotism. 

Horace Greeley said — and he had not yet sold out to 
the bondautocracy ; he had not yet discovered that a vast 
mcnieyed power, which plunders and impoverishes the 
labor of a country, was a great national blessing — he 
said then that disunion was better than a union "pinned 
together with bayonets." 

But the great moneyed power of the North said, We 
can't let these people go. We taxed them for years and 
years, to build up our large cities, our commercial, finan- 
cial, and manufacturing wealth and power. By means 
of this wealth we have been enabled to control the 
political afiairs of the country. We have used it to 
promote our interests and prosperity exclusively. We 



264 1'^i^ GREAT TRIAL. 

have used it to build up a grander aristocracy than the 
slave power of the South. Our white slaves are more 
subservient and more profitable than their negro slaves. 
We can't give up all this power and these privileges. 
We will have war first. What if war does mean tyranny 
and despotism, these things won't hurt us. In despotic 
governments the rich rule, and we are the rich. Indeed, 
if by war we can destroy this democracy entirely, we 
may be, ay, we will be, the nobility of the land. We 
are the nobility now, in fact, but then we will be in name, 
too. We will be the lords and dukes and princes. Let 
us have war. We will pay the expenses — no, we will 
promise that, until we persuade the poor white trash to 
do the fighting, and then we will make them pay the 
expenses, too. Oh, yes, the war will be a good thing. 
It will give us that great national blessing, a huge public 
debt. What a blessing it is to England I A few hun- 
dred thousand of rich people own all the land, and other 
wealth, of that best government the world ever saw, 
and thirty millions of poor white trash work for them. 
They are the lords and dukes and nobility. The masses 
of the people are not in name — that wouldn't sound well — 
but in fact, their slaves. 

War too will increase vastly the expenses of the gov- 
ernment, for it will amplify its power, and thus put into 
the hands of our servants the politicians hundreds of 
millions of dollars, to be disbursed every year. We will 
manage it, for we have for years had these politicians 
completely in our power, so as to get a large share of the 
current expenses. We will see to it too that our servants, 
the politicians, by means of whisky, taxes and tariffs, 
and laws to exempt bonds from taxation, do pay to us 
magnificent premiums. 

Thus by direct and indirect means will we filch from 
labor its hard-earned trash; trash did I call it? oh, 
no, it was Brutus the old patriot of Rome who called it 
trash. Had Brutus lived in this wise age of progress 
and reform, could he have seen how money enables us 
rich to revel in all the pleasures and glories of life, 
could he have seen how omnipotent its power is, how it 
rules every political, religious, and social organization in 



THE FOURTH WITNESS. 266 

this land, be surely would not have called it trash. He 
surely would not thus have insulted our great god mammon, 
but he. would have bowed down to worship it as we do. 
Bill Seward, the devil's premier on earth, did by trick- 
ery, of which he is the grandest master in the world, pre- 
cipitate the war. As a war of conquest and subjugation 
means despotism, he did wisely go to work to make 
slaves out of his own people first. He taught them to 
honor and applaud that regal power, which has no more 
to do than to ring a little bell when it wants some per- 
son obnoxious to itself cast into a dungeon. He taught 
them at the outset to ignore these notions of our fathers: 
that man in order to be free must carry about with him 
rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. War 
has no time lo be bothered with such foolish things as 
these. Nor has it any pleasure in them. Its pleasure is 
to command, and have others to obey. It likes to ring 
its little bell, and cast men into bastiles, and inquire into 
their guilt or innocence at its leisure. Northern polit- 
ical factions, the tools of its moneyed power, was one 
party to the war. 

The Northern masses, the dupes of political scoundrels, 
were another party to the war. These were the more 
readily persuaded into it, because they looked upon 
slavery as a great political power, a great aristocracy, 
dangerous to the liberties of the American people. 

Another party to the war was the political factions of 
the South, the tools of the slaveocracy. 

The fourth and last party was the masses of the 
Southern people, the dupes of these politicians. 

Thus you see there were four parties to the war. Two 
sets of politicians to provoke it, to bring it on, and two 
sets of people to fight its battles, and endure all its pri- 
vations and hardships, its woes unutterable. And this 
is the great Democracy of America. This the land of the 
free and the home of the brave. 'Tis here all men are 
born free, and entitled to certain inalienable rights of " life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." For years and 
years a hireling priesthood has perverted the simplest; 
truths of Christianity, in order to make the people hate 
each other. For years and years they have taught the 
M 23 



266 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

people to worsbip other gods, not the deified virtues of the 
human soul, but the lowest and meanest passions and lusrs^ 
of the human body. Such a people fall a willing prey to 
political factions, for when once a people lose their religion i 

"The magnet of their cause is gone, or only points in vain 
The shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch again." 

When the human soul launches its frail craft upon the 
dark waters of infidelity it is gone forever. That ocean has 
no sheltering port, no harbor of safety. The fearful storm 
of Heaven's anger sweeps over this sea, and drives the 
reckless adventurer of unbelief upon the rocky shores oi 
Heaven's judgment which bound the destroying waves. 

Our fathers were wise and virtuous men, they wor- 
shiped the God of the Bible, and He blessed them with 
showers of blessings. We their children worship mam- 
mon, and all those lusts and passions which wealth and 
licentiousness produce. Mammon, through his agents, 
the rich moneyed monopolies, the bondautocracy, rules 
every sect of priestcraft, every political faction, every social 
organization, even that of matrimony. What a harvest of I 
woes have we reaped, and what dread evils are ia reserve* 
for us yet I The politicians and priests, the tools of the 
slave power of the South and the money gamblers of the 
North, divided the great masses of the people, w^ho were, 
or at least ought to have been, friends and brothers,- into 
two great armies. They set us to killing each other on a 
hundred battle-fields, to devastating our country. 

Who can measure the evil of that war ? who can count 
its cost, not in money, for to one who has a heart to 
feel for others' woes,* money is trash, but the cost in 
rivers of blood, which flowed from bleeding hearts, and, 
siiowers of tears, which fell from weeping eyes? Let the 
thousands and thousands of torn, manj^led, bleeding 
wretches upon a hundred battle-fields, tell. Let the 
thousands of armless, blind, and legless men staggeringi 
limping, crawling over the country, tell. Let the 
thousands of widows and orphans whose piteous cryy 
mourning over their buried hopes, is as piercing as thn 
mournful sigh of winter winds mourning over the deac 
year, tell. The wrath of man shall praise me, and the re 
mainder of wrath will I restrain. 



THE FOURTH WITNESS. 267 

The slave power of the South said, Cottoii is king, I vviU 
•ule this continent, and that institution as a political 
3o\ver is dead forever. The bondautocraey of the North 
„ave said, Gold is king, and we will rule this continent. 
The knell of its doom has been sounded, and it will 
perish forever. And with it will die that vast political 
power which has made the masses of the people of this 
country, as it has done in every other, pack-mules of 
debt and taxation, and that huge ecclesiastical despotism 
which sits like a nightmare upon the souls of men. Does 
anybody believe that the democracy of America, 
which was born fighting against taxation, could be edu- 
cated (precocious as Americans are) in seven years to 
bear a public debt and endure a system of taxation as 
oppressive and unbearable as that of Russia? Does any- 
body believe that a people born free could be educated in 
seven years to endure a system of tyranny as prescriptive 
and intolerant as that of Russia? Does any one who is 
not a crazy fanatic or an infidel without any belief, believe 
that American liberty, born of truth, can die ? 

American liberty is the daughter of Christianity ; 
Christianity is divine, her child, liberty, is immortal, 
America is her home. Nor shall any power, whether it be 
priestcraft or political factions, slaveocracy or bondauto- 
craey, b» able to drive her hence. The Bible is the thun- 
der of her authority, the human soul the lightning of her 
power. Already I see its lurid flashes across the sky. I 
hear in the distance muttering of the coming storm. The 
earth trembles in apprehension. When the day of ju(Jg- 
ment comes, what will become of a hireling priesthood, 
who have preached infidelity and hate instead of faith 
and charity, and taught the people to worship mammon 
instead of that God who made them, and in who.se hands 
their breath is? What will become of political factions, 
who, in the name of freedom and humanity, have de- 
stroyed the liberties of the country, and built upon its ruins 
a tyranny as hateful as that of Russia, who in the name 
of equality have established an aristocracy, the meanest, 
the lowest, and most heartless, that ever robbed the 
labor of any people ? a bondautocraey made up of com- 
mercial thieves, and financial gamblers, political liars, 
and tricksters, and preachers, who have prostituted the 



268 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

sacred truths of Christianity to the vile uses of securing 
for themselves riches and power ? 

Woe unto you, politicians and preachers, scribes and 
Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye shut up the kingdom of 
heaven against men, for ye neither go in yourselves nor 
suffer ye them that are entering to go in ! Woe unto you, 
scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye devour widows' 
houses, and for a pretense make long prayers, therefore 
ye shall receive the greater damnation ! Woe unto ye, 
scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye compass sea and 
land to make one proselyte, and when be is made, ye 
make him twofold more the" child of hell than yourselves I 
Woe unto ye, blind guides, which say. Whosoever shall 
swear by the temple, it is nothing ; but whosoever shall 
swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor. Or who 
gay, Whosoever shall neglect the deeds of charity and 
mercy, it is nothing ; but whosoever shall neglect to make 
money by robbing and plundering his fellow-men, and to 
spend it, building splendid temples, and hiring out the 
pews for one hundred, or five hundred, dollars for the 
benefit of the church, is a debtor. Ye fools and blind, for 
whether is greater the gold or the temple which sancti-* 
fieth the gold, or whether is greater the charity and be- 
nevolence which makes the Christian poor, or the avarice 
and cupidity which makes the bigoted churchmen rieh.> 
Woe unto ye, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites for ye pay 
tithes of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted 
the weightier matter of the law, judgment, mercy and 
faith ; these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the 
other undone, ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat and 
swallow a camel! Woe unto ye, scribes and Pharisees, 
hypocrites, for ye make clean the outside of the cup arid 
of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and' 
excess ! Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is 
within the cup and platter, that the outside may be clean 
also. Woe unto ye, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye 
are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beau- 
tiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones 
and all uncleanliness. Even so ye also outwardly appear 
righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy 
and iniquity. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how 
can ye escape the damnation of hell ? 



THE FIFTH WITNESS. 26? 



THE FIFTH WITNESS. 

I SAW another witness. 

He too had been a soldier and wore a blue uniform. 
And like the other soldier, he had no hands. They had 
been shot oflf in the war. He said he had been a soldier 
in the Federal array, a Union soldier. From his child- 
hood he had been taught to look upon the American 
union of free States as the great bulwark of human free- 
dom. Its wisdom, its broad and comprehensive notions 
of freedom and justice, secured liberty and happiness to 
its own people, and its power was a sure defense against 
the tyrannical governments of Europe. 

Without ever having thought about how that Union 
had been formed, and what was the secret of its glory 
and power, I worshiped it as the noblest and the best 
thing in the world. I had been taught to believe that 
the freedom, happiness, and prosperity of this country, 
which was indeed the wonder of the age in which we 
live, all sprung from the union. Washington, Adams, 
Henry, Webster, Clay, Jackson, and indeed all the great 
and good men of the republic, had loved the Union, and 
enjoined it upon us as a last, solemn admonition, to 
frown down the first dawning of an attempt to separate 
one portion of the States from another. With these con- 
victions, I entered the army as a Union soldier, — not an 
officer for pay, but a private, to fight for my country. To 
fight for the Union which I thought was necessary to 
save the liberties of this country, and perpetuate them. 
I fought for the Union and the Constitution. I fought 
for the States united in a great federal brotherhood. I 
fought for Congress, for the President, and for the 
Supreme Court. 

Where are the Union and Constitution ? broken up and 
destroyed. Destroyed, not by war, but by peace. Not 
by their enemies, but by their professed friends. The 
very States themselves blotted out, so that the Union 

23* 



270 '^^^ GREAT TRIAL. 

inight be made an utter impossibility. Where is the Su- 
preme Court? abolished, by legislative restrictions. 
Where is Congress ? an infidel jacobin band of usurpers 
and tyrants. Where is the Presidency ? surrendered to 
the jacobins by the weak-minded blatherskite who dis- 
graces it. I loved the Twenty-second of February, the 
Eighth of January, indeed every thing connected with 
the birth and preservation of my country and its liberties. 
How ardently and fondly did I love the Fourth of July I 
I once drank from that silver cup delicious wine, the 
nectar of freedom. Its drops became wings to my soul. 
They did carry it away to realms of bliss. But now, 
though it hath more glare and polish, the stuff it holds is 
bitter to the taste, and brings on me a heavy sleep, an 
oppression like the nightmare. May tyrants use this 
pretty cup, with freedom writ on it, to give to man the 
bitter bane of slavery ? How pale, how still, how icy 
cold 1 'tis now but a poor piece of outcast clay. And will 
it speak to me no more, that voice whose soft sympathetic 
rones once soothed the anguish of my woe? And those 
ears, how listless now I 

. "Once, when all others turned coldly from me, I had 
•eave to tell them the sad story of my wrongs. And 
hough you heed me not, I must yet whisper to those 
tumb ears the sorrow of this overwrought heart. Thus 
fondly do we cling to the form, even when the spirit 
which once animated it is gone. 

The Fourth of July was once a beaufiful day, because 
the spirit of liberty and truth animated it. And men do 
yet fondly cling to it, although the life principle, which 
once made it beautiful and lovely is gone. 

Over eighteen hundred years ago there came to earth 
I divine Lawgiver, the Prince of the house of David. He 
gathered together, from the poor and obscure corners of 
he world, twelve disciples. One he saw sitting on the 
eceipt of customs, and he said, Follow me. Another was 

poor fisherman, and so on. He taught as one having 

uthority, and spalie as never man spake before. The 

philosophy of the world taught that the princes should 

hold dominion, and the great should exercise authority. 

But this divine lawgiver taught a new commandment : 



THE FIFTH WITNESS. 2*71 

Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your 
minister, and whosoever would be chief among you, let 
him be your servant. To make his doctrine impressive, 
he always added to his teaching the influence of his ex- 
ample. He girded himself with a towel, and washed 
his disciples' feet. For over seventeen hundred years 
this divine truth was cherished and exemplified by re- 
ligious societies only. Xo one had yet dreamed of intro- 
ducing it into the civil politics of a country, and making 
it the basis of a great political organization. But on the 
fourth day of July, 1776, there met in the New World a 
body of men who for probity, wisdom, and a firm belief 
in the truths of Christianity, were superior to any body 
of men who had ever assembled before, to determine the 
relatio-Q which subsists between man and his fellow - 
man. 

These men were the Christian refugees from the re- 
ligious persecutions of the old world, or the descendants of 
such. The constituency which they represented were 
pre-eminently a Christian people. They, too, were in a 
great measure the refugees from the intolerance of king- 
craft and priestcraft in the old world. They put forth, 
for the first tiiue in the history of the world, a declara- 
tion embodying the wonderful truths.revealed to mankind 
by the great Prophet, whose mission it was to fulfill the 
law, and finish that plan of salvation for man which had 
been decreed in the counsels of eternity. They declared 
that man was morally accountable to his God alone, and 
politically amenable to no tribunal but that of justice; 
that each individual man derived from God, his Creator, 
and not from kings or aristocracies, or any other power 
whatever, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness; that each and every man was entitled to the 
fruits of bis own labor ; and that nobody, whether it be a 
person or a political organization, had a right to infringe 
his rights of personal freedom, or to take from him the 
fruits of his labor, without his consent. They further de- 
clared, that those men among the people whom heaven 
had endowed with superior wisdom, and talent, and 
virtue, owed it to their fellow-men to serve them in 
whatever capacity the people might elect, for the general 



272 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

welfare and common good ; that such public servants 
should be the only government known among tiie people 
that they should derive all their power from the people 
and should be amenable to the people for the proper us€ 
of such authority. 

For the better defense and security of these great 
truths, a fundamental law was made, called a Constitu 
tion, by which certain specified and limited powers were 
delegated for a time to the public servants of the people, 
and all other exercise of power, for any purpose what- 
soever, expressly and pointedly prohibited. 

It was these principles of eternal justice which made 
the great democracy of America the wonder and admira- 
tion of the world. It was these divine truths which made 
it the beacon light to millions of human beings, who 
were drifting on the broken fragments of empires, upon 
the dark waves of political speculation. The toiling 
millions of the old world, who had drudged for centuries 
in hopeless despair, felt their hearts kindling with glad- 
ness when they saw this new light, and hailed it joyfully 
as a harbinger of good. With tears of joy in their eyes 
and rapture in their hearts, they saw springing up, like 
magic, a political society in which freedom did not mean 
license nor government tyranny. But above all did their 
wonder and admiration know no bounds, when they saw 
this people, weak in numbers and warlike preparations, 
held together by no arbitrary power, but by mutual 
expression of amity and friendship, and by acts of 
reciprocal justice, withstand for eight years, in the dread 
shock of battle, the greatest empire in the world. An 
empire whose armies were invincible in the field, and 
whose vast naval power had won for her the proud title 
of mistress of the seas. 

Never before, in any age or among any people, did 
man enjoy a freedom so large, with such perfect security 
to life and property. Millions of the oppressed from 
every other nation, and country, and clime, came to enjoy 
the blessings of a country where the maxim of justice to 
all had t-ecured to all safety, peace, and prosperity. 

Another Fourth of July, memorable as the birthday of 
those truths which have secured to man such unheard-of 



THE FIFTH WITNESS. 273 

blessings, has just passed by. What wonderful changes 
did that day witness, in a country which once justly 
boasted that it was the land of the free and the home of 
the brave. It looked upon eight millions of people 
whose fathers' virtue iiad helped to make that day im- 
mortal, and whose truth had iiallowed it by offering on 
its altars their lives and their fortunes, a nation of slaves. 
Their land desolated by the ravages of war ; their cities 
pillaged and burnt ; every valley and hill-top a cemetery 
for their dead ; their mothers widows, and their children 
orphans. It looked upon old age, who, under the lead of 
the immortal hero of the hermitage, had met and driven 
back the proud invaders on the memorable Eighth of 
January, the last sons of their early manhood, the staff 
of their old age, stricken down with a groan of despair, 
blundering into their graves. It looked upon the de- 
scendants of Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, 
stripped of every political privilege, and robbed of every 
civil right, clanking their chains around the very graves 
of the greatest apostle of liberty and its ablest advocate. 
Ashes of the immortal dead, can you sleep, even in your 
graves, when such foul deeds as these desecrate your 
resting place ?* I thank God that only the dust of noble 
men belongs to the grave. Sparks of truth, which their 
souls cast off in their hours of holy inspiration, are stars in 
our political heavens, and they, like the fixed stars in the 
sky above, will — 

"Whilst endless ages roll along. 
Forever twinkle, twinkle on. 

" Csesar had his Brutus, and Charles the First his 
Cromwell," still rings like a death-knell in the ears of 
usurpers and tyrants. And the Declaration of Independ- 
ence will thrill the human soul as long as its aspirations 
shall be to be free. The spirit of John Adams and 
Patrick Henry made Lexington and Bunker's Hill im- 
mortal. That same spirit hallowed Manassah with its 
rivers of blood. That man cannot be found, I care not 
from what section of the country he comes, I care not 
of what sect of priestcraft he may be the dupe, or of 
what political faction he may be the tool, — I say, that 

M* 



274 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

man cannot be found, who would have the hardihood to 
stand on tlie hallowed ground of Bunker Hill, and say 
that he shed his blood at Manassah to make Manassah 
what it i^ tu-day, — a land of slaves. The insulted shade 
of Warren would rise up to rebuke him and choke his 
utterance. 

That Fourth of July witnessed another spectacle^if 
possible — more startling still. On that day a convention 
of the great Democratic party — so called — assembled in 
the city of New York. They met in the name of the 
people, and for the ostensible purpose of selecting, as a 
candidate for the presidency, a man who believed in the 
Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution of 
the United States. In other words, to select a chief 
servant from among the great men of the nation, to 
labor for the people and to restore those truths of which 
liberty itself was born. Long before that convention 
met, the laboring people of the country, crushed to earth 
by the insupportable burdens of debt and taxation, had, 
throug/h the public press and popular meetings, expressed 
their unqualified disapprobation of that gigantic moneyed 
power which had destroyed the liberties of the country 
and converted the government, which our fathers had 
made a servant to serve the people, into a great engine of 
oppression and tyranny. Not only did this feeling of 
dissatisfaction exist among the working n)en who be* 
longed to this political faction, but it had become wide- 
spread and universal. For every man who gets his 
living by the sweat of his brow, no matter what his 
political prejudices had been, saw the fruits of his labor 
eaten up by a foul, bloated, drunken, licentious, moneyed 
aristocracy. 

Long before that convention met, another convention 
had met in the city of New York. It was composed of 
the commercial and financial gamblers, the goose-quill and 
yard-stick nobility, with their hireling tools, the New 
York politicians. It was determined in this convention 
that the purpose of the people to restore the great truths' 
upon which the American Democracy was founded, and 
with these truths the freedom, prosperity, and happiness 
of all the people must be thwarted. For this purpose 



TIIK FIFTH WITNESS. 21 

a political journal — the New York World — was pur- 
chased, and men belonging to another political faction 
hired to conduct it in the interest of this infanKnis con- 
spiracy. The chief of this damning plot against the 
people Tvas ex-Governor Seymour, of New York, a 
politician who, with the exception of William H. 
Seward, is the most thorough master of all those arts of 
fraud and chicanery which have made the politics of this 
country infamous. This new paper was sent out by the 
conspirators to feel the public sentiment of the country, 
to find out whether the masses of the people were servile 
enough to accept its infamous policy. As the people did 
not believe in the sentiments of this paper, nobody sub- 
scribed for it, — yes, the money aristocracy in the North, 
mighty in power but weak in number, took it; and a few 
chicken-livered original secessionists in the South took it. 
These latter had advocated secession and war as a matter 
of policy. They wanted a new government, of which 
they might be the aristocracy or the political masters. 
But to the people at large this thing was wholly repug- 
nant. 

But the public press, which is universally under the 
immediate control and supervision of the bondautocracy 
and the politicians, driven by the pressure of political 
sentiment, exposed this fraud, and held its authors up to 
the indignation of the country. And Governor Seymour 
especially — the head of this monster, the brains which 
produced it and controlled it — was denounced, as he justly 
deserved to be, in most unmeasured terms. Nettled by 
th& insolence of their slaves, who had submitted so long 
and so patiently to their usurpations and oppression, the 
bondautocracy determined to administer to them a 
sharp rebuke. They at once invoked the aid of that 
idol whom they worship, and in whom they believe, — 
mammon. They knew full well what power that god 
has over the minds and hearts of a people who believe 
in Pharisaism and priestcraft. Among idols, mammon 
is the great god, and among a people who worship idols, 
mammon alw^ays has supreme power. 

But even mammon had over-estimated his strength. 
So long and absolutely had he ruled this country, that 



2Y6 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

he thought he might dispense with those tricks which he 
first used to establish his power. He persuaded himself 
that he was Caesar and had authority to issue decrees. 
He did issue this decree: To you it is commanded, 0, 
people of the United States, to worship the golden idol, 
and whosoever refuses to worship this god, or to obey 
that power which he has established to rule over this 
country, the bondautocracy, with their tools, the priests 
and politicians, shall be destroyed. If any political party 
shall dare, in the name of the people, my slaves, to dis- 
obey this decree, they shall be cast into that desert where 
there is no spoils and plunder — no fat jobs and rich 
contracts — no public cribs to rob, and no slaves to work 
for them. The curse shall be on them which is on the 
people, to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, 
and half of that bread even will I take from them as I 
have taken it from.the masses of the people, and give it to 
my servants, the bondautocracy, the priests and the poli- 
ticians. To carry out this decree, niy faithful servants, 
the New York bondautocracy, have already raised a 
mighty army — two hundred millions of dollars. Let 
the people of the North remember that it was this army 
which crushed the rebellion in the South and made slaves 
out of their white brothers there, and take warning lest 
a similar fate overtake them. 

Signed, First imperial decree ever issued in the United 
States — so called — by 

Mammon, 

For six thousand years the great destroyer of the lib- 
erties and happiness of mankind. 

The masses of the people, oppressed with unsupport- 
able burdens of debt and taxation, and many of them 
pinched by beggary and want, were startled by the im- 
pudent mandate of this usurper and tyrant. Jn thunder 
tones of defiance they answered this insolent threat. 
The flash of their indignation passed on the wall, like the 
hand- write at the impious feast of JBeishazzar, and the 
bondautocracy read in it their doom. For a moment they 
turned pale and trembled. But a little more wine, and 
the drunken revelry goes on. Hath not this our Babylon, 



THE FIFTH UJl'A'FSS. 211 

they say, mighty walls of defense? Hath it not, too, im- 
preirnable bulwarks at every point? 

There is tiiie great ecclesiastical hierarchy, with its 
ramparts of superstition guarded by our hireling priests; 
there, too, are the great political factions with their cita- 
dels of prejudice, from which our faithful sentinels, the 
politicians, can hurl at our enemies, the people, the slings 
and arrows of deceit, trickery, fraud and falsehood. 
There, too, are the great manufacturing, financial, and 
commercial corporations, which hold in their hands the 
bread of millions of slaves, and have power to lash them 
with the cat-o'-nine-tails of want and beggary, if they 
dare to revolt. And there, too, is that mighty river 
Euphrates, — the great national bank, — which the armies 
of the people cannot cross. We will worship the great 
g:od, mammon, who hath given us this power. We will 
use, too, those holy things which have been consecrated 
to truth and to liberty, the Fourth of July, the Declara- 
tion of Independence, the Constitution of the United 
States, and even those temples which, with all their holy 
sacraments, have been dedicated to the God of the uni- 
verse. We'll drink, we'll revel, we'll sleep. Sleep of 
the doomed, who shall awake thee ? Hark, the Persians 
are at thy gates, not to wake thy deep sleep, but to 
make that sleep perpetual ! 

Had the bondautocracy been wise, they would not 
have provoked the spirit of resistance which they, saw so 
clearly manifested. The people won't be driven to sub- 
scribe to these monstrous usurpations. Then they must 
be cheated into it. Mammon changes his base of opera- 
tion and his whole plan of campaign. It won't do to 
fight it out on that line. In the open field he can't meet 
truth. He will bushwhack, and lay in ambush. He 
will even put on the uniform of his enemy. How often 
is the livery of heaven used to serve the devil in ! Bel- 
mont, Seymour's tool, takes charge of the New York 
delegation to the convention. 

As soon as the convention meets, he takes charge of 
some other delegates, enough with those from New York 
to defeat, by the two-thirds rule, any other man before the 
convention. He makes a speech, and talks wiselv. Gov- 

24 



^*18 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

ernor Seymour, too, nuikes a speech, and, very much 
against his personal feelings and real political sentiments, 
as repeatedly expressed before that time, h^ talks harshly 
about the robberies and oppressions of the bondautocracy. 
Governor Seymour, whose birth and education, and whole 
political life, had been identified with this money-power, 
now abusing its wrongs I Governor Seymour, the author 
of the conspiracy to sell out the democratic party to 
money-gamblers, making a speech against the bondauto- 
cracy I 

There surely must be something wrong about this. 
Has he no sinister motive? Is this late conversion so 
unexpected, honest and sincere ? Does anybody believe 
him ? Can anybody trust him ? Did not Salmon P. Chase, 
the vilest of the whole negro-worshiping crew, and the 
most ultra of the radical conspirators, turn suddenly and 
unexpectedly against them, just as soon as he found out 
that he would not be their candidate for the presidency. 
Is there a sane man in the whole country who believes 
that Chase was actuated by honest motives in making 
this change? Is it not patent to every man, not utterly 
devoid of common sense and common honesty, that this 
political trickster turned that summerset for the sole pur- 
pose of getting the nomination of the New York con- 
vention ? 

Exactly similar was the conduct of Governor Seymour. 
Well, maybe we judge him harshly, maybe he is an 
honest man, if it is not a contradiction in terms to call a 
New York politician an honest man. Honest men have 
some modesty, some sense of decency and propriety. If 
he is honest and sincere he will use the'^ew York dele- 
gation, and others which he and Belmont hold in their 
hands, to secure the nomination of some prominent man, 
who was not his preference, and who has been a consist- 
ent advocate of those political notions which Governor 
Seymour has opposed all his life up to this very Iwur. 
He does no such thing. But, on the contrary, he uses 
his hireling tools to defeat the nomination of any man 
who would likely honestly entertain these principles, 
and be acceptable to the rank and file of his party. 

He does worse than this. In order to frighten the 



THE FIFTH WITNESS. 219 

convention into a willingness to accept him, the only 
prominent man in the party who was distinctly and cer- 
tainly identified with the bondautocracy, he holds over 
their heads, as a terrorism, the name of S. P. Chase, a 
maji who did not and does not entertain one single po- 
litical principle in unison with those professed by the 
democratic party. A politician so lost to all sense of 
shame, that he prostituted to the use of a faction of usurp- 
ers and madmen the highest judgment seat of his 
country, and thus sullied with dishonor the ermine once 
worn by John Marshall. 

The trick succeeded, and Seymour was nominated. 
Had the members of that convention been honest and 
upright men, actuated by the highest motives of patriot- 
ism and virtue, as were their fathers who met on the 
Fourth day of July, 1776, they would have driven from 
their midst Seymour and Belmont and their hirelings. 
They would have appealed to the people, and the over- 
worked and over-taxed millions, without regard to their 
former party predilections, who have seen the fruits of 
their industry year after year eaten by a greedy and de- 
bauched aristocracy, would have responded in tones of 
thunder, which would have shaken not only the tyranni- 
cal corporations of this country, but the despotisms of 
^he world. But as they were only a baud of political 
gamblers, whose only idea of patriotism is to get the 
power in their hands, in order that they may have the 
plunder, they submitted to the insolent dictation of that 
moneyed tyrant who rules the country with a rod of 
iron. 

Thus is the anomalous spectacle exhibited to the world, 
of a little band of politicians, perhaps not over a hun- 
dred, and maybe not over a dozen, representing the 
money power of this country, dictating to thirty-five 
millions of people, professing to be free, who shall be 
their president and ruler. Everybody who has kept 
himself at all familiar with the political sentiments of 
the country knows that General Grant was not the 
choice of one man out of ten in the ranks of the republican 
party ; but that Stewart of New York, the prince of the 
yard-stick nobility, and three or four lords of the goose- 



38p. THE GREAT TRIAL. 

quill, commanded the republican politicians to take him 
and force him on their party, and the politicians dared 
not disobey. 

Equally well does everybody know that Governor 
Seymour was not the choice of one man out of a hundred 
among the democratic masses. But Seymour and Bel- 
mont, the representatives of another branch of the aris- 
tocratic family, ordered the New York convention to 
accept Governor Seymour, and that convention dared not 
disobey the insulting mandate. Thus has it been deter- 
mined, long before the wretched farce of an election comes 
on, who is to be the President of the United States. 

Was ever such a spectacle exhibited to the world 
before? Thirty-five millions of people professing to be 
free, whose fathers were free, and upright, and noble, 
reduced to such abject slavery, that they no longer have 
left even the poor privilege of choosing their ov^^n masters ! 
The chiefs of the yard-stick and goose-quill nobility, the 
most successful commercial and financial gamblers of the 
country, living in the city of New York, who, years ago, 
out of fear of the beggared and starved masses in their 
own city, sold out the freedom of that city to Albany 
politicians, have just purchased from two political con- 
ventions the rights and liberties of thirty-five millions of 
people. 

Am I mad, or are my countrymen mad, who suffer 
such crimes as these to go unpunished ? Some time ago 
a friend asked me who would be the nominees of the two 
conventions about to meet. I told him I thought Jefif 
Davis would be the nominee of the friends of freedom 
and humanity, and Beast Butler the choice of the friends 
of constitutional liberty. He expressed some surprise, 
and asked me what I meant. I answered that the radi- 
cals, by their unblushing acts of tyranny, had lost the 
confidence of the people of the North, and would have 
to depend in a great measure upon the Southern States, 
so called, and that it would be a wise measure of expe- 
diency to select a distinguished and popular statesman 
from that section ; and that inasmuch as the democracy 
is made up of the masses, who earn their bread by the 
sweat of their brow, and live hard generally to accom- 



THE FIFTH WITNESS. 281 

modate the bondautocracy, they might easily be per- 
suaded to vote for a man who had it iii his power to furnish 
each family with a set of silver spoons. It did not 
occur to me then, that the power of the bondautocracy 
was so absolute, that they might so entirely disregard the 
wishes of the people as to refuse to offer them some 
petty trifle as a token of regard for their menial subserv- 
iency. Somebody says Seymour stands on the platform. 
So he does, and he stands on the democratic party, too. 
He rides it as every man would ride his mule. Shall the 
mule choose the road, or the man that rides the mule? 
Has not the man already bridled the mule, and got on 
its back? Didn't he spur the mule into his road at the 
very starting point? If there is anybody who has any 
faith in the platform or promises of political factions 
nowadays, I must pronounce such an one an incorrig- 
ible partisan. If there is anybody who could trust the 
promises of a political convention, which at its first 
meeting sold out its own honor and the liberties of the 
people it represented, the authorities ought to know it, 
and appoint a guardian to take care of him. 

Why, even the Constitution, with its sacred memories 
and revered truths, the Constitution under whose benign 
influence we have reaped so many harvests of freedom, 
of prosperity and happiness, has been openly and pro- 
fessedly rejected and trampled on by the political faction 
DOW in power. If a thing made for holy uses, and im- 
bued with the highest wisdom and truth, is not spared 
by the sacrilegious hands of these political factions, what 
would a thing be worth which was made expressly to 
cheat the people and defraud them of their liberties ? 

There are thousands of good men to-day weeping over 
the ruins of their country's liberties. They have de- 
spaired of being free. They have come to the conclusion, 
against their wishes, it may be, that people are not capa- 
ble of self-government. They are beginning to believe 
that we will be forced, as all other democracies have 
been, to take refuge from anarchy in despotism. The 
willingness that people have shown to be slaves; the 
readiness with which they have sanctioned every act of 
fraud, oppression, and crime perpetrated by the usurpers 

24* 



282 ^^^ GREAT TRIAL. 

at Washington ; the applause of the people, when the 
usurpers publicly boasted that they had ignored the Con- 
stitution and disregarded its restrictions upon their 
power; all these things, and many others which might 
be mentioned, have shaken the confidence of many good 
men in the virtue and honesty of the people, and in their 
capacity for self-government. 

The political factions, priestcraft, and thebondautocracy, 
watching these signs of weakness and degradation among 
the people, are already plotting the overthrow of our 
democratic form of government, and the establishment 
of a monarchy and aristocracy on its ruins. But these 
powers are making false calculations. These hopes are 
delusive ; their infernal machinations will be defeated ; 
their infamous purposes to destroy their country's liberty 
will be thwarted, and they themselves will perish. This 
country was dedicated to Liberty, and it will be free for- 
ever I * The genius of Christianity planted it here, she 
nursed its infancy, she delivered its youth from the power 
of European tyranny, she guided it to a glorious manhood, 
— will she desert it now ? never, never 1 She will lead it 
to nobler triumphs than it has ever yet achieved. Guided 
by her wisdom and truth, it will go forth to destroy those 
mimic powers of tyranny which hamper its manhood. 

Political factions which have sold the liberties of the 
people must die. A hireling priestcraft, which h:is, in 
the name of Christianity, taught every falsehood the 
devil could invent to hide the truth, to debauch the 
public morals, to debase the human soul, and dishonor 
God, must die. A moneyed aristocracy which has 
robbed labor of its hire, defrauded the innocent and un- 
suspecting, trampled the weak under its feet, and starved 
the poor, must die. The bondautocracy, priestcraft, and 
politicians have forgotten that there is such a thing as 
the human soul. They have forgotten that there is such 
a thing as the Word of God. They have forgotten that 
when that Word breathes its breath upon the human 
soul, that soul is set on fire, and burns up all the chaff 
and stubble in the world. Everything will perish in its 
flames but the truth. The truth, like refined gold, wil' 
eome out brighter and purer than ever. 



THE FIFTH WITXESS. 283 

The worshipers of mammon, politicians, priests, and 
bondautocrats, have made the issue, let them abide the 
'consequences. They have divided society into classes 
by usurpation and frauds, they have seized the power 
of government, they have used it for years to promote 
their own interest and welfare, disresrarding entirely the 
happiness of the people at large. They have made war 
upon labor, and robbed it of its hire. They have made 
wealth the mark of respectability and the measure of merit. 
By this law three-fourths of the people, whom they have 
plundered and made poor, are stripped of that influence 
which they would have in society, if wisdom, and virtue, 
and truth were the measure of merit instead of money. 

Finally, in order to perpetuate their unrighteous rule, 
and to make the degradation and slavery of the people 
eternal, they have made the powers of the government 
absjlute, and denounced as traitors and rebels every- 
body who darerf to resist their usurpations and oppose 
the wrongs and oppressions which they are inflicting on 
the people. So insolent and domineering have they 
become, that they have dared, even in the halls of the 
national legislature, to stigmatize the laboring people 
of this country as poor white trash. They have come 
to the conclusion that by means of the half-civilized negro, 
governed by the carpet-bag spies and military satraps, 
they can get along without the white man. The common 
people of this country have so long been the dupes of a 
hireling priestcraft, and the tools of political scoundrels, 
that their masters have learned to despise them. Because 
the people at large are not educated in the trickeries and 
frauds of a vicious system of politics, falsely called 
statesmanship ; because they are not learned in the ten 
thousand quibbles and quiddities, absurd, contradictory 
and unmeaning arbitrary rules, falsely called law ; 
because they don't understand (and nobody else does) 
the thousand devices of priestcraft, cunningly devised 
words of human wisdom, invented to make the human 
soul even the slave of human power ; I say, because of 
this apparent ignorance of the people, their masters 
have learned to despise them, and treat them with utter 
contempt. 



284 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

But thank God mankind is no longer dependent upon 
the philosophy of this world, so called, for wisdom. I 
thank God we have direct from heaven a message de- 
livered by the Prince of Heaven himself, which is wisdom, 
and knowledge, and virtue. Not that wisdom which en- 
ables a few men to make slaves out of their fellow-men, 
to rob and plunder and oppress them, but that wisdom 
which gives prosperity, and happiness, and freedom, to 
all. The Great Lawgiver said, " If I make you free, 
you will be free indeed." It offers its wisdom not only 
to the wise, but the simple also, not only to the strong, 
but to thje w^eak, also, ay, the wayfaring man, though 
a fool, may read and understand. Its mission is divine, 
its power is omnipotent. Its promises are the promises 
of him who cannot lie. His word shall stand when the 
heavens shall flee away, and the stars will wander, 
darkling, in the eternal space. It comes with no false 
theories, no specious promises, no morbid and sickly 
philanthropy. It does not come to man like the priests 
and politicians, and tell him that he must believe that 
all men are equal in order that he may be free. It does not 
tell him he must believe woman is equal to man, and en- 
titled to equal authority with him in order he may be free. 
It does not tell man that he is free simply because he 
has the nominal privilege of voting, no matter what his 
condition may be. It does not tell man that he must 
degrade his own being, and mar the beauty of his own 
race, by mingling his blood with that of the half civilized 
and servile negro, in order that he may be free. 

No, no; Christianity has no need of these cunningly 
devised words of human wisdom. She invents no such 
pretty lies to deceive man. She tells him stern, hard 
truths, and by these truths only can man be free and 
happy. She tells him that the Creator, of his own will 
aod pleasure, has made all things unequal. The Creator 
himself is above all, and all things are unequal to him. 
The angels in heaven are unequal. In the whole world 
two men cannot be found who are exactly, and in every 
particular, equal. The moon is unequal to the sun. The 
stars are of different sizes, of different degrees of bright- 
ness, and consequently unequal. The different animals 



THE FIFTH WITNESS. 285 

are unequal. The trees, the flowers, the groves, the 
birds, the fishes, are unequal. And yet this barefaced 
lie, contradicted by everything in nature, contradicted 
by the reason and common sense of the weakest and 
most ignorant of mankind, has been accepted by learned, 
so called, priests and politicians, and incorporated as a 
fundamental principle in their philosophy. Such is the 
palpable ignorance of infidelity, even when aided by all 
the learning and philosophy of this world. It accepts, 
as truth, falsehoods so glaring that they do not impose 
upon children or even upon fools. 

Christianity teaches that God made woman to serve 
and obey man. This is the foundation on which society 
itself rests. Destroy it, and there is an end to social 
order. Society itself can't live a day. Destroy this 
truth, and you at once divide every house in the land ; 
you throw a fire-brand into every family ; you make two 
Gilt of those whom God has joined together and made 
one. Christianity teaches that God has made the differ- 
ent races of mankind unequal ; common-sense teaches 
this, as does the history of the world for six thousand 
years. Not only is it contrary to Christianity, but to all 
the higher and better instincts of nature itself, for man 
to mingle his blood with that of an inferior race. 

Look around you and see who commits this crime, and 
you will see that it is only such as have become brutal- 
ized and debauched. It is only those whose moral natures 
are utterly depraved, and who have given themselves up 
to the lusts of the flesh. Look, too, at the moral, politi- 
cal, and social degradation of those people who have 
made this horrible crime a national practice. Look at 
Mexico, a mongrel muck of whites, negroes and Indians. 
She has been, and is to-day, a boiling cauldron of revo- 
lutions. Anarchy instead of law, war instead of peace, 
desolation and ruin instead of prosperity. Yet, notwith- 
standing these truths do stare them right in the face, the 
priests and politicians, the masters of the people, are 
trying to force on them this crime against nature and 
God, with all its interminable train of evils. 

It is for the purpose of making man free and happy 
that these lies are told. Don't these priests and politi- 



2gg THE GREAT TRIAL. 

cians know that they are lying ? Don't they know that, 
as long" as they can makfe man the slave of lust and 
passion, that they can be his masters? 0, yes, let them 
once succeed in making a cross between the poor white 
trash and the negro, and they will have a race of slaves 
as tame as they desire. Will they succeed ? Never, 
never. The time for priests and politicians to rule the 
world has passed away. Christianity has come into the 
world, to give light to every man. The cloud of igno- 
rance which hung over the world for thousands of years, 
hiding its crimes and follies, has passed away. 

The Bible, with its divine truths, is in the hands of 
every man. These truths are so simple, that a wayfar- 
ing .man, though a fool, can understand them. It tells 
man that God is bis father, and that he must love him 
with all his heart, mind^ soul and strength ; that his fel- 
low-man is his brother, and that he must love him as him- 
self. It forbids man, by all the terrors of eternal punishr 
ment, to use the superior wisdom and power, which God 
has given him, to wrong and oppress his fellow-man. It 
commands the wise and the great not to be the masters 
of their fellow-men, but their servants. It commands the 
strong to lift up the weak and protect them. It forbids 
the laborer to be robbed of his hire. It commands woman 
to serve and obey her husband. It commands man to 
love, and cherish, and protect woman; to shield her 
beauty, to guard her innocence, and defend her virtue; 
to make her home the abode of comfort and happiness* 
How richly will he be rewarded. Her smiles will be as 
beautiful to him as the sunshine, and her words as soft 
as the dews of heaven. 

The lies which the priests and politicians have taught 
the people must die, and all the wicked and oppressive 
institutions which have been built up on these falsehoods 
must perish. The people have the power in their own 
hands to destroy them. Let them go to work. Let 
them use the ballot, which was put into their hands by 
their masters to amuse them whilst they robbed them, 
to destroy all these wrongs and oppressions. Let them 
teach their masters, the priests and politicians, that they 
can get along without them, and their false systems and 



THE FIFTH WinYESS. 28*7 

creeds. Let them strike down, at one blow, all these 
despotic institutions which have been built upon the ruins 
of their rights, their liberty, and their happiness. 

The people of this country have got on the wroni^ 
road. They have been traveling it for a long time. The 
devil has been traveling along close behind them. He 
has seized every hill-top, and fortified it. On one hill 
stands the political factions, with all their power over 
the prejudices and passions of mankind. Innumerable 
other points have been seized and fortified by the num- 
berless sects and creeds of priestcraft. But the great 
city of his power, Babylon, around which he has built 
fortifications which seem impregnable, is the vast monied 
aristocracy. The railroad corporations, the manufactur- 
ing corponations, the commercial corporations, stand like 
so many formidable bulwarks around it. And then that 
mighty river Euphrates, the great national banks, pours 
its floods of currency like a deep stream around it. 

But notwithstanding all these formidable obstructions 
in their way, the people must, and will, go back to the 
road of truth. Only there can they find peace and 
prosperity ; only there can they find freedom and 
happiness. They must turn away from those blind 
guides whom they have been following so long. They 
must take the matter in their own hands. For years 
and years the politicians and priests have been promis- 
ing reform. This political faction and that, this sect of 
priestcraft and that, has invented from time some specific 
for their moral •nd political ills. Every ism which the 
devil could suggest has been tried. Almost as many 
panaceas to heal the political evils which curse this 
country have been invented as the quack nostrums to 
cure its physical maladies. 

The venders of these religious .and political pills have 
advertised them with the same impudent assurance and 
unblushing falsehoods with which these quacks have 
advertised their vegetable and mineral poisons. The 
people have swallowed both with a surprising credulity. 
The result has been the same in both cases. The victims 
of medical quackery have been hurried to their graves, 
and the victims of the moral and political quacks have 



288 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

been hurried to moral degradation and political death. 
The venders of these poisons only have profited by it. 
They have got rich, and great, and powerful. Poor, 
miserable slaves, they have spent all their money, all 
the fruits of their labor; all these they have given to 
their doctors, the priests and politicians, to make them 
free, and prosperous, and happy, but instead of these 
blessings, their doctors have brought on them the night- 
mare of debt and taxation, the sharp pangs of tyranny, 
and fearful apprehensions of the terrible spasms of 
anarchy. Is there no balm in Gilead ? Is there no 
physician there ? Temperance and sobriety will cure 
our bodily ails. Judgment and justice will cure our 
moral, social, and political ills. Let those who have de- 
ceived the people, those who have sold their liberties and 
rights to the moneyed tyrants, and those who have 
bartered their souls to the devil, be brought to speedy and 
condign punishment. 

The last Fourth of July witnessed another spectacle 
equally humiliating and insulting to the masses of the 
people of this country. There was assembled in New 
York city, on that day, a convention representing the 
working people of this country. Such a convention 
ought to represent five-sixths of the people. It was sup- 
posed that in this democratic country, so called, that 
some deference would be paid to the wishes of such a 
body, and some respects to their wants ; especially was 
this looked for from a political organization which de- 
pended almost exclusively upon their vo^fes for success. 

And yet they were taken no more notice of than if they 
had not been there. They set there like the poor boy at 
a frolic^ waiting to see if some crumbs might not fall to 
their share after the politicians and bondautocrats had 
feasted themselves to their fill. But they waited in vain. 
The politicians prepared the table, set at the head of it a 
representative man of the aristocracy, eat up the good 
things and cleared off the table, without so much as 
calling in their slaves, the working men, to pick the 
bones and eat up the crumbs. Did ever the owners of 
negro slaves in the South so far forget not only right 
and justice, but all the better feelings of humanity, and 



THE FIFTH WITNESS. 289 

even the proprieties of hospitality ? And 3"et that con- 
vention, representing the great masses of the people, 
submitted to this indignity without a murmur, and en- 
dured this wrong, this foul wrong, without protest. Can 
a people so menial and subservient be surprised to see 
their masters laying plans to complete their degradation, 
and to make it perpetual ? 

The Fourth of July is gone, and the millions of people 
of the United States, so called, of the great American 
democracy, so called, who looked to it for some bold out- 
spoken reform which would bring them relief from their 
intolerable burdens of oppression, are disappointed. The 
mechanics of every class, the laboring men of every con- 
dition, the farming portion of the people, constituting in 
all five-sixths of the people of this country, who work 
hard all the year round, and live hard to pay their taxes, 
have been as utterly ignored as if there were no such 
beings in existence. The politicians met, and, as if they 
Ijad the absolute right of ownership, sold them out to the 
money-gamblers. 

The public press too, which the people support at an 
enormous expense to take care of their rights and liberties, 
has sanctioned the infamous fraud. Even that portion 
of the press which had warned the people of this mon- 
strous conspiracy to perpetuate their slavery, has joined 
the conspirators, and shouts as lustily for them, as if they 
were honest men, and patriots. Even the editor of the 
La Croi>se Democrat, whom the people sustained so nobly 
when he had the courage to defend them against the 
bondautocracy, has deserted their cause. Brick Pomeroy, 
w^ho exposed so ably the plot to sell out the labor of the 
country to capital, who held up to the scorn of all honest 
men the plot of the New York money-gamblers to buy 
the people from the democratic convention; who de- 
nounced Governor Seymour as the head and brains of 
this infamous plot, has accepted this accomplished polit- 
ical gambler as a person fit to be the President of the 
United States. The people supported Pomeroy, because 
they believed he wa« honest in his professions of friend- 
ship for tliem. Their generous support has made him 
rich, and how hardly can a rich man be a patriot. 
N 25 



290 TUE GREAT TRIAL. 

I repeat it, in this money-worshiping age and coun- 
try, where mammon is everybody's god, and rules every 
political, social, and religious organization, it is easier 
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than 
it is for a rich man to be a patriot. Pomeroy, who 
boasts of his hundreds of thousands of subscribers, men' 
who took his paper because it claimed to be the unflinch- 
ing advocate of the rights of labor against the oppressions 
and wrongs of the great moneyed monopolies, and is to- 
day urging these hundreds of thousands of men to sup- 
port Governor Seymour, whose great talents, drilled in 
all the arts of chicanery which characterize the politics 
of this age, fit him better than any other politician in 
America, to perpetuate that governmental policy which 
Ims already reduced nine-tenths of the people to the con- 
dition of abject slaves to the great money-gamblers. 

Grant, the ^'onfe^sed tool of the yard-stick and goose- 
quill nobility, is an acknowledged ass, and, led around by 
small politicians like Washburne, would soon be recog- 
nized, both by his ears* and his braying. The bondauto- 
cracy would have absolute control over him, and the 
whole machinery of the government would be kept at 
work for the exclusive benefit of his masters. The in- 
tolerable burdens of debt and taXfation which would in a 
few years be forced on the people would drive them to 
open and determined resistance. But Seymour an astute 
politician, would modify these evils so that the people 
would not feel them so heavily. He would reduce their 
burdens, so as to persuade them to bear them. He would 
sweeten the bitter cup of this servitude with reforms and 
promises. The reforms would indeed be only specious, 
only so in appearance, and the promises shallow and false. 

What is the use, for instance, to tax the bonds, when 
the political faction called the government are the toolsf 
of the bondautocracy ? The bondautocracy would buy 
your legislatures, both State and National, as they have 
done heretofore, to pass laws to rob the laboring people 
out of more money than the taxes levied on their bonds. 
And what are promises worth from a man whose actions 
during his whole life have been opposed to the promises 
which he now makes ? 



THE FIFTH WITNESS. 291 

What are promises worth from a man whose opiuions, 
expressed onl}^ a few- months ago, werie in direct contra- 
diction to the promises which he now makes? S. P. 
Chase, who is heart and soul with the radical faction, 
including their negro equality and bondautocratic rule, 
was willing to make promises to the people and accept 
the Democratic platform. Andy Johnson, Bill Seward's 
w-eathercock, who hasn't got mind enough to have any 
policy, was ready to accept any platform, and make any 
promises, to get a hundred thousand dollars for occupy- 
ing the White House a3 a tenant for the next four years. 
And let me ask, is there a man among the prominent 
politicians of this country, who would hesitate to make 
any false promises, or to tell any number of lies, in order 
to get into his hands the great power and patronage 
which has been of late years exercised by the President, 
or even for the poor privilege of being what Andy John- 
son has been, a mere puppet President ? 

I fought too, for the stars and stripes. In twenty-five 
battles I carried it aloft. When I lost my right arm, I 
carried it with ray left. That flag, which I loved and 
honored as the Labarum of liberty, has become the ensign 
of despotism. On its folds are written, not union and 
liberty, but conquest, subjugation, empire, power. Not 
only are the people of the South slaves, but the whole 
body of working people in this country. A Union soldier 
carried the old flag, with union and liberty writ on it, 
through the whole South not along ago. Everywhere 
among the rebels its authority was recognized and re- 
spected. But when it reached the national capital, it 
had to be folded up and laid away. 

Yes, for this flag I fought for four years, gave both of 
my arms for it, and yet this day there is a power in pos- 
session of the national capital which forbids it to wave 
there. The jacobin usurpers who have seized the gov- 
ernment, and made it a great consolidated despotism, 
have run up another flag. It bears some resemblance to 
the old flag, but it is not the same ; some of the stars are 
black negro stars, instead of the white silver stars which 
were there before. And instead of union and liberty, 
consolidation and tyranny are written on its folds. 



292 TBE GREAT TRIAL. 

A tree is good or bad according to the fruits it bears, 
and so is everything else. When the starry banner 
was the symbol of union and liberty, I loved it. Asa 
proof of that love, look at these scars, look at these 
stumps of arras without hands. Now that it has become 
the symbol of despotism, I hate it. Proud banner, since 
thou hast betrayed the cause of liberty and truth, is it 
not fit that the tongue which was ever loudest in thy 
praise, should speak thy curse and tell thy doom. 

THE STARRY BANNER. 

Starry banner, wave on high, 

Victorj brightens every fold; 
Justice, truth, contemn, defy, 

Like the Roman flag of old. 

Stretch thy folds across the earth, 

Empire let thy motto be. 
Scorn the the that gave thee birth. 

Magic word 'twas Xaberty. ; ^ - , . ^ ;- .,, . 

Liberty, great central orb, '' Ir* ti l.'>'"7»;') 1 
i'llii ii*>V<.' Like the heliocentric sun, ,.,[ y,; •';;', Jj i 

^.,^: 1 Made to light, but not absorb, ,... 'r , | , i ... ?,, 

' -*' * '* ' Myriad stars that round thee burn. 

Lo ! no marshaled host above, 

Armed with burnished shield and spear; 

But the wondrous power of love. 
Holds each star within its sphere. 

And whilst e'er that sun shall beam 

Warm with love, with truth so bright, 
Cheering, with his smiling gleam. 

Travelers through tbe realms of nighty 

Starry voyagers on the deep. 

Distant azure, ether sea. 
Steady on their course will keep 

On as long as time shall be. 

Once put out thy genial ray. 

Light and life of worlds on high. 
Darkness, who'll dispute thy sway, 

Monarch of the earth and sky? 

Wild chaotic storms will blow. 

Rolling hideous waves of night; 
Night on night in endless flow, 

Darkening every gleam of light. 



THE FIFTH WITNESS. 293 

Save the flash of a shooting star 

Bursting from its heavenly home; 
Shaking with convulsive jar 

Empyrean's highest dome. 

Thua proud 'twill be with thee, 

Haughty as thy boast may be. 
When thy stars no more shall see 

The glorious sun of Liberty. 

Power's splendid dazzling gleam 

Cross thy azure field may throw 
G-lory's fleeting transient dream ; 

But, proud banner, thou must know 

Brighter glory never shone, 

Dazzling with its splendid glare, 
Than from Caesar's haughty throne 

Made the trembling nations stare. 

Hark ! d'you hear that wild storm wail,— 

Bursting storm of Gothic ire; 
Rome, I see thy glory pale 

In its gleams of Vandal fire. 

Whither now's thine empire fled, 

Mistress of a conquered world ? 
'Neath the rude barbarian's tread. 

In the dust thy banner's furled. 

Glory'f but the lightning's flash 

Gleaming from an angry sky ; 
Sent to guide the thunder crash, 

To the doomed of earth to die. 



25* 



294 THE GREAT TRIAL. 



THE SIXTH WITNESS. 

He, too, was a soldier ; he wore a blue uniform, and, 
like the other too, bad lost both of his arms. 

He said ; Before the war, I had been an abolitionist. 
I had never stopped to inquire whether slavery was a 
paying institution or not. I was not in the habit of 
estimating things — moral questions at least — by their 
relations to gold. I could not even admit, in defense of 
slavery, the fact that the institution had been established 
by God himself, and that it had existed in every age of 
the world. Nor was it sufficient, in my estimation, to 
show (and this nobody could deny) that the Constitution 
of the United States recognized slavery and protected it. 
Our fathers were good men, and the government they 
founded was the best the world ever saw. Taking it as 
it was, slavery and all, it was better than any existing 
government, or any government which had ever existed 
in the world. 

My religion is a belief, not in the perfectibility of hu- 
man good, but in its progressiveness. The fact that we 
had organized a better government than anybody else, 
any other age or nation, was to my mind conclusive 
proof of this proposition. Before the revolution by which 
we established our independence of England, we looked 
upon her government as the model of excellence. But 
when we made our own government, not only we, but the 
world, looked upon it as a better one than that of England. 
At the time of the revolution, the English government 
was better than it had been one hundred or even fifty 
years before. Indeed, the governments of Europe for 
hundreds of years had been gradually improving. In- 
ternal convulsions, working great moral, social, and 
political changes, were to all heathen nations signs of 
decay and death, but in our own age they are milestones 
to mark the onward march of nations to freedom and 
happiness. 



THE SIXTH WITNESS. 295 

In the empires of Greece and Rome, and other heathen 
nations, civil wars were the symptoms of that political 
disease which resulted in iheir death. Modern nations, 
on the contrary, can all point to these great moral up- 
heavings as epochs in their history which mark the birth 
of some magna charta, declaration of independence, or 
other clear and comprehensive recognition of man's rights 
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. AVhence 
coujes this remarkable difiference between ancient and 
modern times? What great conservative law is that 
which preserves the life of a nation when it is jerked and 
torn to pieces by the spasms of revolution? What 
mysterious power is that which follows the desolating 
track of war, sprinkles healing water on it, and bids a 
new and more beautiful life spring out of the ashes of 
its ruins? War, the servile minister of revenge and 
hate, the menial tool of despots and tyrants, to break and 
destroy, to j)lunder and oppress, what invincible hand 
has chained thy mad spirit, and makes it serve the ends 
of justice, of liberty, and enduring peace? 

All the wisdom of worldly philosophy can't answer 
these questions. But a voice comes from heaven (whence 
only knowledge and wisdom can come) which says. The 
wrath of man shall praise me, and the remainder of 
wrath will I restrain. All things shall work together 
for good to them who love God. The word of God only 
can answer these questions. Over eighteen hundred 
years ago the Messiah's kingdom was established in the 
earth. The Prince of the house of David was appointed 
to subdue the earth linto himself, and to reign over it 
forever. The promise of the Father was (and he cannot 
lie), I will give thee the heathen for an inheritance, and 
the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession. How- 
was this kingdom to be established ? First by subduing 
the hearts of men unto God, and then by destroying all 
these institutions of oppression and wrong, which the 
world, the flesh, and the devil have set up. By sin man 
did fall from the favor of God ; he lost his power to do 
good ; he lost his freedom of action. Christ came to 
restore that power, to break the power of the devil, and 
make man free. He says, himself, If I make you free, 



296 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

then will you be free indeed. How will he make man 
free? By constraint? surely not. Man must choose this 
freedom. It must be a voluntary act of his own will. 
How then will Christ subdue, the world unto himself? 
How will he make man a child of God, and a brother of 
the Son of God ? How will he make man free and 
happy without constraining him? By convincing hira 
of sin, of righteousness, and of a judgment to come. 

The progress of eighteen hundred years has gathered 
together a mass of facts sufficient to satisfy any honest 
and candid mind that both our personal freedom and 
happiness, and our freedom and happiness as a nation, 
depends entirely upon our knowledge of Christianity 
and our acceptance of its laws. 

If we will look at the history of nations for eighteen 
hundred years, you will see that they have been free, and 
prosperous, and happy, just in proportion to the extent to 
whicli they accepted the Bible and its truth as their 
religion. I would further say that the religion of a 
people, together with their freedom and their happiness, 
has l)een in inverse proportion to the power and influence 
of that ecclesiastical despotism called the church. 

I repeat it, wherever the human soul has broken the 
shackles of priestcraft, there man has been free and 
happy. And by priestcraft I mean not only popery and 
protestantism, but every corporate body which claims 
the right to control the consciences of men. By priest- 
craft I mean every system of morals which man has 
built up to cheat and deceive his fellow-man. The Bible 
is the only true system of religion in the world. And 
no man, nor body of men, has a right to substitute for 
the Bible their own commandments. Popery is a trick 
of the man, and so is Methodism, Presbyterianism, and 
every other sect and creed in the world. The Bible is in 
itself, and of itself, the beginning and the end. It is per- 
fect and complete. Nobody has a right to add to it, to 
subtract from it, or to substitute anything else for it. 
Tiie Bible comes to each individual man as the word of 
God, and speaks directly to him. Man wants no priest; 
he has a High-Priest, even Christ. He, too, will be his 
prophet. He wants no king, no ruler, for the Prince of 



THE SIXTH WITNESS. 297 

the house of David will be his king, to reign in him and 
to rule over him ; to subdue all his desires and affections 
unto himself, When man accepts this truth he will be 
free. God will be his father, and his fellow-man his 
brother. Love, and not power, will rule the world. 

This is the promise of Christianity to mankind. This 
18 her mission in the world. This is her glorious destiny. 
Whenever mankind shall be convinced of this truth, 
whenever they shall be willing to accept it, then will all of 
its precious promises be theirs. Christ can't force it on 
them. He could have done that eighteen hundred years 
ago. Know ye not that I could call to my Father and 
he would presently send me twelve legions of angels ? 
But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled ? How 
would the great plan of salvation devised in the counsels 
of eternity be carried out? God did not create man like 
a clock, to work by wheels a certain way; he did not, and 
does not now, want his forced obedience. He could easily 
have made man like he did the brute creation or the 
vegetable kingdom, or the celestial world, — to be passive, 
to act only as he is acted on ; to move only under the im- 
pulse of some positive force called law. When he made 
man, he wanted him to be an intelligent being, with power 
and liberty to choose good or evil. He wanted beings 
who would serve and honor him from choice, and not 
from necessity. 

A man don't govern his child like he does a saw-mill. 
The latter he drives by the power of water or steam, the 
former be leads by the constraints of love. It is the con- 
stant effort of the parent to convince the child that 
obedience is for its own good. How very long does it 
take parents to accomplish this matter I The customs of 
society have fixed the time at twenty-one years, and this 
is more than half the average duration of life. So was 
it heaven's purpose, in making man, to have a child who 
would love and obey its Creator, because his ways are 
pleasantness and his paths are peace. But man sinned, 
and fell under the curse of heaven. Then the great 
question in the divine mind, was, how could he be saved? 
How could the prodigal, who had wasted his substance \x\ 
riotous living, be brought back to his father's house? 
N* 



THE GREAT TRIAL. 

The Lion of the tribe of Judah prevailed, to break the seal 
and declare this mystery to the world. 

It is the mission of Christianity to accomplish this 
wonderful o^ood for mankind; to fulfill this beneficent 
proniise of heaven. For over eighteen hundred years 
she has been silently, noiselessly, yet omnipotently, work- 
ing out this great problem. Just in proportion to the 
extent to which individuals and nations have accepted 
the Bible and its truths, they have been happy ; and just 
in proportion to the extent to which they have rejected 
the truths of the Bible, they have been miserable. And 
whenever a nation or people shall accept the Bible as 
their religion, its commandments as their law, and Christ 
its author as their king, they will be free and happy. 
When the time shall come, — and it will come just as sure 
as God has promised it, — we shall see that beautiful peace 
described by the prophet thousands of years ago. Then 
will nations learn wars no more. They will beat their 
swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning 
hooks. 

This is that higher law which I have believed in for 
years and years. A law which overrides all the conven- 
tional forms, the plans and systems of man. This law 
is a spirit invisible, but all-pervasive and all-powerful. 
It is a progressive law, and aggressive too. It fights on 
the offensive all the time. It attacks everything in its 
Way, — ay, it goes out of its way to attack the very 
citadels of evil, which the world, the flesh and the devil 
have built up. Having a sword but no scabbard, it wages 
ceaseless and eternal warfare upon the wicked customs, 
and laws, and institutions of the world. 

Nor will this war cease until every knee shall bow, 
and every tongue confess, that Christ is God. We must 
acknowledge Christ not only as the father of our spirits, 
not only as our high-priest, but as the Prince of the 
House of David, who has authority to rule and govern 
everything. Every political power and every social or- 
ganisation, every religious body which claims the right 
to rule over man, must be put down. Its authority must 
be ignored and its power broken. When these powers 
are all destroyed from the earth, then will that prayer of 



THE SJXril WITNESS. 2^ 

the Christian be answered, Let thy kingdom come, and 
thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. When man- 
kind shall accept the word of God as the'guide of their 
life and the rule of their actions; when they shall ac- 
cept the law^s of the Bible to govern their moral, political 
and social relations; when they shall throw off the yoke 
of kingcraft and priestcraft; when they shall refuse to 
accept any man as their master or their ruler, then, and 
not till then, will man cease to be the oppressor of his 
fellovv'-man, and become his brother. 

With these notions I was opposed to African slavery. 
I looked upon it as a great moral evil. Some of its prac- 
tices were cruel and barbarous. I was opposed, utterly 
opposed, to the fugitive slave law. To require me to 
catch a poor friendless human being, hiding from his 
ruthless pursuers as a hare would hide from the hounds, 
to be insulted and browbeat and tortured, was an outrage 
upon the personal liberty of man which no freeman could 
submit to. It was, too, an act of violence to my consci- 
entious convictions of right, and I would have rather 
died than have submitted to it. It was, moreover, an 
offense against the spirit of American institutions. I was 
the firm and constant advocate of those personal liberty 
bills which were passed by the free States to nullify that 
iniquitous law. And when the democratic party, so- 
called, sold out to the slave-power, and attempted to seize 
the national governmeut to carry out its purposes, I was 
in for that great uprising of the people of the North to 
defeat it and its plans. I voted for Lincoln, and rejoiced 
at his success. 

But just then sprung up a new condition of things. 
The Southern States, fearing that it was our purpose to 
attack slavery in the States, and use the power of the 
government for its destruction, determined to secede. 
When the slave power had possession of the government, 
I held that we had the right both to nullify the laws of 
the government, and also to secede from the government. 
Therefore would I have been grossly inconsistent to have 
denied the same right to the States of the South. I was 
in favor of letting the rebel States go off peacefully. A 
war to force your own notions on other people, to compel 



THE GREAT TRIAL. 



tbem to accept your opinions about politics or religion, is 
an outrage upon all just notions of freedom. And to do 
this thing in tKe nameof Christianity is blasphemy against 
God. It does not help the matter in the least to say that 
we were right and they were wrong. 

Indeed this is the very reason why we ought not to 
have made war on them. For this very reason we could 
well afford to let them go. Let them go and set up 
their bad institutions right by the side of our good 
ones, and the world can see the diflference. Let them 
both work side by side, and theirs would fail and ours 
would prosper. Let them live side by side in the broad 
sunlight of truth, which lights up this edge of the world, 
and theirs, like a sickly plant, would wilt and die, but ours, 
like a vigorous healthy plant, would grow and flourish. 

Believing that our institutions were better in every par^ 
ticular than those of the South, I even was anxious for 
the separation. I was anxious that the two systems 
should be set down each on its own bottom, and left un- 
influenced and uncontrolled by the other to work out its 
own mission. My motto was to let each one by itself 
exhibit its own beauty, and, by contrast, the deformity of 
the other. 

But there were two great parties at the North who 
entertained different notions. The one call themselves 
democrats. They believe in the strict construction of the 
Constitution and States' rights. Their notions of States' 
rights seems to be this, that the States have a right to 
do what the general government may allow. That each 
State has a right to a State organization, and may pass 
such laws as it chooses, provided it don't choose to pass 
any law contrary to the wishes of the national govern- 
ment. In a word each State was free to do whatever 
it thought would be for its own good, provided the 
national government would let it. The serfs of Russia 
have the same kind of freedom, and so had the negro 
slaves of the South. They were free to do whatever 
was in accordance with the wishes of their masters. 

There was another political party at the North. These 
call themselves freesoilers. They hold the old Federal 
doctrine that the people are not fit for self-government, 



TUE SIXTH WITNESS. 301 

and that therefore they ou<,^ht to have a government of' 
power, a government backed up by standing armies ancf 
brute force. These are the yard-stick and goose-quill no- 
bility. These are the financial gamblers and commercial 
thieves, — the great moneyed monopolists. These are the 
rich men of the North, who were opposed to negro 
slavery, because they found white slavery more profitable. 
These are they who believe that the Almighty made the 
world for the few, *' the elect." The earth was made for 
the saints, and the saints are those sniveling hypocrites 
who wear religion as a cloak to win the confidence of their 
fellow-men, in order that U)ey may deceive them and rob 
them, to make themselves rich. 

Between this party and the democratic, which I have 
just described, there is really no difference. The men who 
control both these parties are the aristocracies of the 
North, and aristocracies always believe in arbitrary gov- 
ernments. Each of those parties has deceived the masses 
who support them, by some professions of liberal prin- 
ciples, which they take care never to practice. The 
democrats, for a blind, preach States' rights, which means 
in practice (see Yirgiuia and Carolina) dependent prov- 
inces governed by a consolidated despotism. The free- 
soilers preach for effect against slavery, but take good 
care to spend all their wrath upon the negro slavery away 
down South. They never have a word to say against 
the white slavery at their own doors. ' These free-soilers 
say it was a horrible thing to hold three millions of half- 
civilized barbarians in slavery, although they were born 
slaves and knew nothing else. Are they honest in their 
professions, or are they made only to answer some other 
purpose ? 

If this is wrong, by what law of reason, of justice, or 
by what teaching of Christianity, do they make slaves 
of eight millions of freemen, — men who were born free, 
and who are, in all those qualities of mind and heart 
which dignify and ennoble human nature, equal to them- 
selves — men who are their own kith and kin, their own 
fathers and sons and brothers ? Will they say, in answer 
to this, that these people won't think right and act right? 
Why, don't freedom mean this, that men are endowed by 

26 



302 TJJE GREAT TRIAL. 

their Creator with the inalienable rights to life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness ? that men have, from the 
God that made them, the right to think and act for them- 
selves? Will they say that men may not act for them- 
selves when their acts would be hurtful to others and 
destroy their liberties, and that because if these people 
were left free, they would wrong the negro, therefore 
must they not be permitted to act for themselves? Is it 
consistent with the American ideas of freedom, to say, 
we are afraid this man or that man will steal, and there- 
fore will we take him up, and send him to the peniten- 
tiary ? .^ 

That would-be philosopher, that wretched old sophist, 
who swears to one thing to-day and another to-morrow, — 
Horace Greeley, — will say in answer to this, We caught 
these people stealing, and are keeping them in bonds for 
it. This professional old falsifier, who to-day advocates 
in the name of freedom a military tyranny over ten States, 
or, what is worse, its pale, blighting shadow, a mongrel, 
mulatto-bastard tyranny, begotten by military despotism 
upon the body of a lewd, filthy Democracy, the hired harlot 
of usurpers, at the beginning of the war, said it would 
be better to let the States go than to hold them pinned 
together with bayonets. Punish these people because 
they once held slaves I Why, you can't punish people, 
except for the violation of some law ; and what law did 
they violate in holding slaves? The Constitution of the 
United States? The laws of Congress? All these 
laws not only recognized their right to hold slaves, but 
protected them in it. By what law then would you pun- 
ish them ? By the law of God, these hypocrites will 
answer. But what do you mean by the law of God? 
The law of Moses ? surely not ; for it recognized slavery 
as a proper institution. Will they say they do it by the 
law of the New Testament, the law of Christ ? Surely 
they won't say this ; for the great Author of that system 
taught, not only by principle, but by example, that we 
must suffer for others, and not make others suffer for us. 

'Tis true, a bigoted and hypocritical priestcraft has re- 
versed this rule. 'Tis true, that great ecclesiastical des- 
potism, called the Church, has for ages, instead of offering 



THE SIXTH WITNESS. H^ 

itself a sacrifice for the good of mankind, as its great 
Author did, ofiFered men called heretics and dissenters 
sacrifices upon the altars of its ambition, its pride, and 
its love of power. 'Tis true, that in the name of Chris- 
tian charity popery built her inquisition, with its thou- 
sand implements of torture. It is true that in the name 
of Christianity, protestantism, the bastard child of popery, 
did rob and plunder and persecute catholics. 'Tis true, 
that in the name of Christianity, the Big Spotted Circus 
did meet the African show at Chicago, and oifered to 
make Hiram Caesar, if Caesar would make Simpson pope, 
with power to force "our religion and our Bible" on the 
country. 

All these perversions of truth have been made in the 
name of Christianity. But that fact don't save them 
from being what they really are, falsehoods; nor does it 
save their authors from being hypocrites and devils. Ac- 
cording to the ideas of freedom on which our government 
was founded, we have no control over the people of the 
South, And even if " 'I' had the right to rule them, it 
would be our duty to set them free, and punish them if 
they interfered with the freedom of others, and not to 
make slaves out of them because we feared they would 
make slaves out of others. I am and have always been 
an abolitionist. I have always opposed slavery ; but if 
slavery must exist, if the three millions of negroes or 
the eight millions of whites in the South must be slaves, 
why, let the negroes be slaves. 

If it be true, as the people say, that they can't release 
the white people of the South from slavery, because that 
would make slaves out of the negro, I would say let 
the white man be free. Do you say I have no right to 
make this difference ? Then why did the God who made 
man make this difference ? Hear what he says : But if 
thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be 
sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve thee 
as a bondservant. But as a hired servant, and as a 
sojourner, he shall serve thee until the year of jubilee. 
Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor, but shalt fear 
thy God. Both thy bondmen and bondmaids which thou 
shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are around about 



304 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

you. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your 
children after you to inherit them for a possession. They 
shall be your bondmen forever, but over your brethren of 
the children of Israel ye shall not rule over one another 
with rigor. 

Here the Bible distinctly recognizes the difference be^ 
tween different classes of people, and enjoins a different 
treatment. Here were two different people, between whom 
God himself had made a distinction. The one he had 
chosen to be a peculiar people, — *' his own people." To 
them he had made special manifestations of his wisdom, 
his power, and his glory. He commanded them in theiir 
conduct to observe this distinction, and to treat their 
brothers whom he had blessed with more kindness and 
regard than the heathen around about them. Has not 
that same God blessed with special blessings and peculiar 
privilege the white people of the South as well as the 
white people of the North. While, in the inscrutable ways 
of his providence, he left the African to grope his way in 
the darkness of ignorance and r^jperstition, he gave to 
the Caucasian, our fathers, and the fathers of our brothers 
in the South, the Christian religion, the wisest and best 
system of truth ever revealed to the world. Did he not 
bring our fathers and their fathers. Christian men, who 
were persecuted for the truth's sake, to this goodly land ? 
Did he not give the Northern Staties to our fathers, and 
the Southern States to their fathers, for an inheritance. 
Because they loved him and believed in him, did he not 
give them this land, so broad and beautiful and fertile ? 
A land richer than the Canaan of the Jews, and more 
beautiful than the land of promise. For the sake of our 
fathers and their fathers, did he not drive out before them 
the red men, as he had done the Amorite and Hittite be- 
fore Joshua and the children of Israel ? Did he not put 
into the hands of our fathers and their fathers the heathen 
from the wild jungles of Africa, to subdue the forest for 
them, and endure the hardships and exposures of a wil- 
derness country ? Have not these same barbarians been 
Christianized and humanized by our brothers of the 
South? 

When the God who made us and them has made all 



TRE SIXTH WITNESS. 306 

these diptinctions in their favor, and blessed them with 
those special blessings and privileges, shall we make dis- 
tinctions against them ? Shall we make slaves out of 
them, whom God had made free and their fathers before 
them for generations, and set over them to rule over them 
the heathen whom God had made slaves, and their fathers 
before them, as far back as the records of history run ? 
Is this the way we propose to vindicate the great prin- 
ciples of freedom and humanity? If the right to life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is an inalienable and 
God-given right, if there is no power on earth which may 
take it from man without violating the laws of justice 
and truth, if it be a crime to take it from a half-civilized 
race of barbarians, then by what law do we take these 
privileges from Robert E. Lee and Alexander Stevens, 
the highest type of men that ever lived in the world? 

Do you answer, By the laws of war, the right of con- 
quest and subjugation ? Then power, and not justice, 
rules the affairs of men. Then do we justify that plea of 
tyrants for murdering, plundering, and oppressing their 
fellow-men. Then might makes right. Then the millions 
of human beings in Europe, Asia, and Africa, who to-day 
are groaning under the oppressions of tyranny, are the 
enemies of their kind, and the despots, who are goading 
them with oppression, are the friends of freedom and 
humanity. Then were these same slaveholders right in 
robbing and oppressing the negro. Then were Adams, 
Hancock, Washington, and Henry wrong in teaching 
mankind that resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. 
Then is the Declaration of Independence false, and the 
genius of American liberty a miserable illusion. Ay, 
these new-fangled philosophers would set down Christi- 
anity itself as a cheat, and its promises to mankind the 
idle dream of fanaticism. 

There must be something wrong about this. Honest 
and conscientious men don't fall into such errors. Who 
are the men who talk so loudly about freedom and hu- 
manity, until they get power into their hands, and then 
do deeds so cruel and barbarous? By their fruits ye 
shall know them. When I see Saul of Tarsus, in the 
name of Moses and the prophets, persecuting the follow- 

26* 



306 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

* 

ers of the prophets ; when I see him, in the name of the 
laws and ordinances of his religion, trying to destroy that 
living Truth of which these laws and ordinances were 
but the types and shadow ; when I see him, in the name 
of Israel's God, beating and stoning the servant of the 
Son of God, — servants whom he had sent forth to es- 
tablish his kingdom on earth ; I say, when I see all these 
things, 1 am forced to believe that there is something 
wrong. Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye 
have eternal life ; and they are they which testify of me. 
Had Saul of Tarsus searched the Scriptures? No, no, 
not he. He had gone to the scribes and Pharisees, the 
lawyers and doctors, who taught for doctrines the com- 
mandments of men. They had commissioned others to 
put the Master to death, and of course they would com- 
mission Saul to slay his servants. 

When I see men in the name of freedom and humanity 
making war on their brothers, their sons, and their 
fathers, not only politically and socially, but by the ties 
of kindred and blood ; when I see them destroy the young 
men of the land, making the fathers childless, the mothers 
widows, and the children orphans ; when I see them make 
the land — abounding in crops — a desolation and a waste ; 
when I see them changing the ancient democracy of 
America into a great consolidated despotism ; when I see 
them converting free States into dependent provinces, and 
appointing over them military satraps, with almost un- 
limited power ; when I see them disfranchising men who 
were born free, and whose fathers had helped their fathers 
to secure freedom as a common good; when I see these 
freedom-shriekers setting up men, who they say had 
been degraded by a brutal system of slavery, over men 
of the highest culture, wisdom and virtue; 1 say, wheii 
I see all these things, I am forced to believe there is 
something wrong. These deeds — evil deeds — are not the 
fruits of freedom and humanity, nor are they consistent 
with that Christian charity which is gentle, and patient, 
and long-suffering, which teaches us to love our enemies, 
and to die for their good. 

Let us look into the matter a little, and see how it is. 
They will say that, although war is a terrible thing, yet 



THE SIXTH WITNESS. SOT 

war may be justifiable when it is undertaken in behalf 
of freedom and humanity. yes, a war to liberate four 
millions of slaves from bondage would be a holy crusade. 

Is it true that the war was undertaken to free the 
negro ? Does not all the history of the times prove 
that this was not the case ? Did not Mr. Lincoln, in his 
public and official messages, so declare? Did not the 
Congress, by resolutions almost unanimously passed, pub- 
lish it to the world that the war was not intended to in- 
terfere with slavery, either to alter or abolish it? What, 
then, was the object of the war ? why was it waged by 
the friends of freedom and humanity ? Would you like 
to know ? would the authors of this war like to know ? 
would those w^hose hands are red with their brothers^ 
blood like to see the truth ? Ah, no I they would sooner 
hide from it, for it haunts their guilty consciences like the 
ghost of murdered innocence. Yet will I tell the truth ; 
I will tell it in a manner so plain that the fool may read 
and understand. 

Just before the war commenced, a Southern gentleman 
of my acquaintance met a market-woman on the street. 
He held out his hand to her and said, '* Good-b^^e, Mrs. 
Thompson ; I am going to leave you ; your people have 
become very angry at our people, and they talk about 
making war on them. It would certainly be a most cruel 
and unjust thing, and what their reason for it is I cannot 
devise." " Yes," she replied, " we will make war on 
you. We won't let you out of the Union ; we want you 
to traffic with.^^ 

Ay, though we of the North may well blush to con- 
fess it, yet this is the stern, naked truth. In the Union, 
we had for years fixed the termaof trade with the South, 
and by these terms had we grown rich and the South 
poor. Let her go out of the Union, and she will propose 
different terms ; she will insist on conditions which will 
cut off that stream of wealth which she has been pour- 
ing into our lap for years and years. No, no; we can't 
let her go ; we must keep her to traffic with. Yes, wealth 
and power was the object of that war. Is it a legitimate 
object of pursuit for a free people ? May they justly 
follow it, when, to attain it, they have to wade through 



308 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

rivers of blood and swim throu«rh oceans of teiirs? 
Wealth, and power, and glory. May we have these 
pretty toys, when they cost so much ? 

Think of the hundred battle-fields, with their thousands 
of bleeding, mangled victims ! Noble youth, who were 
the props of old men, the pride of fathers, the joy of 
mothers, the wife's love, the child's protector, the 
maiden's hope, their country's glory ! Who have been 
benefited by that wicked and unrighteous war? And 
will you say it was not a wicked war? 

By their fruits ye shall know them. This is the only 
rule of justice I know of. What are the fruits of that 
war? We may pass by the four years' war itself; we 
may forget for the time the vast armies of men, hun- 
dreds and thousands exposed to the burning sun of day, 
the dews of night, the rains, and snows, and piercing 
winds of winter ; we may forget those horrid prison-pens, 
North and South, where men were devoured by hunger, 
disease, filth, and vermin. 

Be it said, to the credit of our enemies, that they pro- 
posed to do away with those filthy prison-pens by a regu- 
lar exchange; but the friends of freedom and humanity 
considered them a good war measure, and refused to ex- 
change. I say we can safely pass by all the evils imme- 
diately connected with the war itself, for the men of the 
South who suffered and died, although the sons of the 
slave-holding aristocracy, were our enemies, and we need 
take no account of them ; and the men from the North 
who composed the rank and file were on]y poor white 
trash. They were getting too thick to thrive at home, 
and it was not amiss to take off a few hundred thousand. 
It would leave more roontl for those who were left. 

Ay, it was well for another reason : The masses of 
these poor white trash in the northern cities were getting 
extremely poor and hard pressed. " During our long 
hard winters abundant and importunate beggary would 
seize them and drag them around the streets, the pitiable 
objects of public and private charity." These poor white 
trash were getting tired of this thing; they did not like 
to starve. This was stronge, was it not? So their rich 
taskmasters thought. They began to complain ; their 



THE SIXTH WITNESS. 309 

protest was not as a general thing loud and boisterous, 
but deep and earnest. The more intelligent of them were 
making strikes; they were organizing trade unions. The 
same thing happened here which happened everywhere 
else in the world: Capital, governed as it always has 
been, not by the law of justice, but by cupidity, was 
struggling to get power into its hands, so that it might 
rule everything for its own benefit. 

For instance, they bought for awhile the party leaders 
in New York city ; but when they run the price up, 
they found it cheaper to buy the State Government at 
Albany. So Albany took charge of New York, and New 
York ceased to be a free city. This was the first success- 
ful attack made upon democratic institutions in this 
country. Let every American blush for shame, when he 
remembers that the great commercial emporium of this 
country is not a free city, and has not been for many 
years. It was such acts as these that began to alarn> 
the working men of the North. 

Recognizing this as an open declaration of war against 
labor, the working men began to organize associations 
for their defense. Because they found strikes to be 
only temporary relief, they organized other institutions. 
This in its turn gave alarm to capital. It looked with 
uneasy anxiety at this fierce democracy marshaling its 
forces for the coming struggle. And by democracy I do 
not mean that miserable political faction which was for 
years the hireling agent of the slave power of the South. 
I mean that spirit of liberty which first announced its 
^ternal truths in the Declaration of Independence. I 
mean that spirit which maintained those truths at Lex- 
ington and Yorktown. I mean that spirit which organ- 
ized free governments in America, governments so wise 
and free and beneficial as to be the wonder and admira- 
tion of the world. I mean that spirit which always rises 
up, whenever aristocracy shows its head in this country, 
to put it down. 

The first e^g that monster laid in this country was the 
alien act and sedition laws. Mr. Jeflferson sounded the 
alarm, and the people jumped on it, and smashed it be- 
fore it was hatched. The next spawn of this sea monster 



^i(3 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

aristocracy was the United States Bank. The hero of 
the Hermitage grappled it with his strong arm and iron 
will, and choked it to death. But aristocracy learned 
in this country, what it had learned in other countries, 
that it could not maintain itself in an open field and fair 
fight against democracy. 

Hence it determined to change its plan of campaign. 
It called to its aid that power which it has used success- 
fully everywhere else in the world. It invoked the inter- 
position of mammon, that god who has put under the 
feet of kings and aristocracies the people of every nation 
and every age. Mammon, when before he had set up hi? 
power boldly, in the shape of a great National Bank, 
the people overthrew it. But mammon is the prime 
minister of the devil, and, like its master, it is most pro- 
ficient in all the arts of deceit and trickery. It began by 
attacking the priesthood. It soon subdued them to its 
rule, and made them worship it as their god. It next 
sent them among the people to teach them that Christi- 
anity means not as Christ commanded, to be good and 
do good, bat to got rich and pay a part of your wealth to 
the church. To teach the people that religion means, 
not to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy 
neighbor as thyself, but to make money by taking ad- 
vantage of the necessities of others, or their ignorance, 
and to spend a part of it in building fine churches and 
paying the priest good salaries. As soon as mammon 
became the god of the people, money became the measure 
of merit. And to-day a man's position and influence in 
society is determined, not by his talent and virtue, but 
by the number of his thousands and millions. It was 
by this law that the whole political power of the South 
passed into the hands of the slaveocracy, and the politi- 
cal power of the North into the hands of the great money 
monopolies of that section. 

These two powers, and not the people, determined on 
war. The history of the times will show that three- 
fourths of the people, both North and South, were op- 
posed to the war. And well they might be, for the people 
at large had everything to lose by it and nothing to gain. 
The slaveocracy of the South w^anted war for the pur- 



THE SJA'TJI WITNESS. 311 

pose of having an independent government, — an aristoc: 
racy, of which negro slavery would be the basis, and 
cotton king. The moneyed aristocracy of the North 
wanted war, so as to have a government of power, of 
which the poor ivhite trash would be the mud-sill and 
money-king. And, as I said before, this moneyed power 
at the North was getting afraid of the working men. Al- 
ready this power was greater than theirs in numbers. 
Labor only needed to marshal and organize its forces to 
beat them in every fight. It had commenced organizing. 
To avoid this fight, the aristocracy of the North determ- 
ined to have another fight, — a fight in which its chances 
to win would be as three to one. 

In this wise it reasons about the matter: For years 
w^e have been silently and quietly working ourselves into 
powder. We have gotten possession of all the political 
parties. We can go to any legislative body. State or 
National, and buy any monopoly we want. Indeed our 
agents, the lobby members, do really constitute the legis- 
lature, and pass all important laws which are made. The 
members of these legislatures are only nominally the 
representatives of the people. They are in fact our rep- 
resentatives, and they do spend their whole time legis- 
lating for us. For over twenty years the Congress has 
passed no important practical measure except at our 
request, or at least without our consent. The different 
State legislatures have done most as well. 

We have moreover gotten absolute control over churches 
of every creed or sect. Men from our ranks are the lead- 
ing and influential members of all the churches. Indeed, 
we have changed the very nature of religion itself. Re- 
ligion once meant love to God and your fellow-man. It 
meant charity and benevolence. " Go and tell John the 
blind receive their sight, the deaf hear, the lame walk, 
and the poor have the gospel preached to them." That is 
the picture of Christianity drawn by the hand of its great 
Author. The boast of a modern priest is that I preach 
to the richest congregation in the city or country, as the 
place may be, and have the finest church and the best 
organ. The master said, the widow who gave her mite 
had given more than all the rest. The priests of this 



312 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

day take indeed the widow's mite, and the orphan's bread 
too, but they give them no credit. But the big gifts of 
the rich are published from the housetops, and in th^ 
middle of the streets. The most influential members of 
the church are those who make the niost money, — no mat- 
ter how they make it, — and have the most to give to 
priestcraft. Yes, the influence of a church in any com- 
munity is just equal to the amount of money which it can 
command. 

We, too, fix tire position of every man and woman id 
isociety. No matter what their virtue and intelligence 
are, they cannot go into the first circles unless they are 
rich. We don't mean to say that respectable and intelli- 
gent people would be picked up neck and heels, and cast 
violently out, if they veritured into the first circles; but 
we mean this, that they cannot support that style which 
fashion demands of all who come among us, and that if 
they come in without it, they would be jeered and ridi- 
culed out. There might indeed be an exception to this 
rule. Genius which had acquired fame or talent, which 
would beyond a perad venture acquire fortune, might be 
sufi'ered to remain without the regular badge of member- 
ship, the gilded gewgaws of wealth. But with this ex- 
ception mankind in general have nothing to do; for only 
one in a million has genius to win fame, and only one in 
ten thousand has talent to make a fortune. 

Thus it is plain that we have acquired control over 
every political, moral and social institution of the country. 
The great question is, how shall we hold on to this power. 
The democratic spirit of this country is already growing 
restless under it. If that spirit was once fully roused up, 
it would be too strong for us. It would beat us two to 
one, — ay, more than that, for they outnumber as ten to 
one. Heretofore we have co-operated with the slave 
power of the South, but in our dealings with that we have 
always gotten so much the better of them that they want 
to go off and set up for themselves. For several reasons 
we can't permit this to be done. 

In the first place, it was by the help of that slave- 
ocracy, a great political power, that we have kept control 
of things here in the North. If we lose their aid, we 



THE SLXTJl WITXESS. 313 

will lose our power here at home. While we have used 
their power, — always strong, because it was always 
united, — to give ascendancy to aristocratic institutions in 
the North, we have. at the same time used their open and 
undisguised slavery to lead the minds of our poor white 
trash from that slavery, not nominal but real, to which 
we have been gradually reducing them. If we suffer 
these slave States to go off, the poor white trash here 
will begin to look at home, and then they will find out 
that they are as reall}'^ slaves as the negro. Yes, for 
many reasons war will be the very thing. It will be to 
us a gift, — we like to have said from heaven ; but we 
hardly think such gifts come from heaven. No matter: 
it will answer our purpose, and accomplish our end better 
than anything else. In tiie first place our superiority of 
numbers and resources gives a guarantee of success. We 
will precipitate the war on the country, and force the 
people into it. When once we get their prejudices and 
passions and revenge waked up, we can give the matter 
any turn we please. The masses of the people are op- 
posed to it. Indeed, nothing can be found in the Constitu- 
tion of the United States or in Christianity to justify such 
a war, and these are the sources from which the American 
people draw the inspiration that governs their actions. 

After the thing is done, when the people look upon the 
terrible cost (not in money, that's trash to them), but in 
the rivers of blood and the oceans of tears, the suffer- 
ing, the privation, the dread apprehension, the woe untold, 
— I say, when the people consider all these evils, they 
will not dare to say that they have been done without 
the sanction of that great tribunal of human justice, the 
Constitution and Declaration of Independence, and with- 
out the sanction of that highest Court of Appeals, that 
tribunal of eternal justice which Heaven has established 
on earth, — the Bible. No, no: a people whose hands are 
reeking with the blood of their fellow-men will not dare 
to handle these sacred things. But when men have done 
evil deeds, they must have some excuse to quiet the up- 
braiding of their own consciences. 

We will furnish them a salve for their wounded con- 
sciences ; we will tell them the war was one of subjuga- 
o 27 



314 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

tion and conquest. What a thing will this be to tell 
the American people, — people educated both practically 
and theoretically in the beautiful notions of democratic 
freedom ! Tell a people whose fathers taught them that 
self-government is the inalienable right of man, tliat 
there is a power to govern people without their consent; 
a power to rule them by constraint, by force, by vio*- 
lence ! This, indeed, will be a hard saying for them to 
receive; but how will they escape it? It won't do for 
them to say that the war was a crusade against slavery. 
No, we will not abolish slavery; our President shall 
make that declaration to the world. We have here a 
paragraph prepared for Mr. Lincoln's inaugural address: 
" I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with 
slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have 
no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do 
so.^^ Surely we will not abolish slavery in the Southern 
States, since our object is to establish it in all the States* 
So when the war is over, we will have the people in this 
fix: they will be compelled to admit the right of gov- 
ernments to rule by force, or else repudiate their own 
actions in carrying on the war. Once force them to 
accept this doctrine, that a government has the right to 
rule by force, and democracy is at an end. You have 
laid the foundation for monarchy and aristocracy, and 
we — the rich, the bondautocracy — will be the kings, the 
princes, the lords, dukes, and nobility. A war, too, will 
consolidate and enlarge vastly the power of the National 
Government, and this will help the matter on; it will 
create a standing army ; it will make an immense national 
debt, — a great national blessing, considering that we are 
the nation ; it will make the annual expenses of the gov- 
ernment six times what it now is, and twenty times, 
yea, one hundred times, what it ought to be, and those 
things of themselves will put the whole power of the 
government into our hands. Mammon will be god, money 
king, and we the lords of the earth. 

Yes, let the war go on ; it is the very thing we want. 
Here are fifty millions to begin it with, and that will be a 
pledge of our continued support. So did the bondauto- 
cracy reason at the beginning of the war. 



THE SIXTH WITA£:SS. 315 

The slave power of the South reasoned about the same 
way. To it war meant an independent government in 
which itself, because it was the great aristocracy of wealth, 
would hold supreme power. To please these great 
powers, the horrors of a four years' war was inflicted on 
the country. What the people have suffered in blood, in 
tears, in apprehension, in want and poverty, who can 
tell ? But as these sufferings fell on the poor white trashy 
what does it matter ; who cares for them ? The slave- 
ocracy lost everything. It aimed at an independent 
government in which its power would be supreme ; but 
instead of securing that, it lost its own existence. 

Will the northern aristocracy come out any better in 
the end ? Its calculations about its success, the destruc- 
tion of democratic institutions, the consolidation of the 
national government, the ''great national blessing,^^ — a 
great national debt, and the vastly-increased national ex- 
penditures, have come out right. But it did not expect 
to destroy negro slavery ; it did not expect to utterly 
destroy the productiveness of the slave States ; they did 
not expect to impoverish those States so completely that 
they w^ould be unable to pay any considerable portion of 
the immense war debt, and the extraordinary current ex- 
penses which the war has entailed upon the country. 
They did not expect that the elements, made for the use 
of men, would catch the evil spirit which was ruling 
him, and, in mimicry of man's petty revenge, withhold 
its rains and dewsi so as to cut short the crops, and thus 
impoverish the people. They did not think that all those 
causes, working together, would throw at one dash upon 
the backs of the northern people burdens as big as those 
which the kings and aristocracies of Europe have been 
putting on their people little by little for hundreds of 
years. They did not think that these unbearable burdens 
of debt and taxation would wake the people up, and open 
their eyes to the infernal conspiracy to destroy their free 
institutions and make them slaves. The boudautocracy 
knows these things now ; the people know them too. 
They are waking up to a sense of their real condition, 
and they begin to see the awful evils which hang over 
their future. 



316 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

First, you may see on their faces fear and consterna- 
tion ; then that sober, earnest, determined expression 
which says to everybody, tell us the truth, no matter 
what it is, we must know it. It is the human soul that 
speaks thus. I see now even, the angry frown gathering 
on their brow, like the storm-cloud of an angry sky. 
Presently from that cloud will flash lurid gleams pointed 
with the thunderbolts of retributive justice. Then well 
may tremble those guilty wretches, who have within 
them undivulged crimes unwhipped of justice. Well 
may tremble those scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who, 
instead of teaching the laws of God, teach for doctrines 
the commandments of men. 

Woe unto these scribes and Pharisee hypocrites, who 
teach, instead of the truth, the virtue and purity of the 
Christian religion, spiritualism, free-loveism, mormonism, 
mongrelism, divorce, child-murder, infidelity, lust, be»st- 
iality, hatred, and diabolism I Woe unto these scribes 
and Pharisee hypocrites, who have taught the people to 
worship mammon and his angels, — the glittering baubles 
of wealth and fashion, instead of that God who made 
them, and in whose hands their breath is I Woe unto 
those scribes and Pharisees who, instead of going out 
into the highways and hedges to the lame, the halt, and 
the blind, go to rich communities where they can have 
fitie churches, fine houses to live in, and big salaries, so 
that they can be gentlemen, and live in the first circles, 
so called! Woe unto these scribes and Pharisee hypo- 
crites who, instead of love, preach hate, war instead of 
peace I Well did the prophet say of these priests, thou- 
sands of years ago, Woe be to the shepherd of Israel thaf do 
feed themselves I Should not the shepherd feed the flock? 

Well, too, may these politicians tremble in whom the 
people trusted and confided as leaders and guides, who 
in the name of the Union have divided the States ; who 
in the name of humanity have waged cruel war; who in 
the name of freedom have changed the condition of the 
negro slaves of the South, so that, instead of being the 
slaves of individual masters, they are the dupes and tools 
of a mad political faction, to be used by their agents, the 
carpet-baggers and military satraps, to destroy the 



THE SIXTH WITNESS. 3l> 

American democracy and build a despotism on its ruins. 
Woe unto these politicians who in the name of equality 
are building up an aristocracy the most heartless, greedy, 
and avaricious that ever preyed upon the labor of any 
people I Woe unto these politicians who in the name of 
justice tore the laboring people from their families and 
their homes, and forced them into the horrors of a four 
years' war, to endure the privation, the suffering, the 
wounds, diseases, and death of a hundred battle-fields, 
and permitted the rich to stay at home and make money 
by being substitute-buyers and government contractors ! 
Woe unto these politicitins who in the name of justice 
and honor have doubled the debt which the war actually 
cost, and now demand that the working men, who gave 
their arms, their legs, their eyes, their sufferings and 
privations which no tongue can tell, their blood and 
their lives, with all the dread anxiety, the heart-beat- 
ings, the tears, the neglect, and w^ant of their fathers, 
their mothers, their sisters, their wives, and their little 
ones ! Woe, 1 say, unto the politicians who demand that 
the working men, who gave so much to the war, shall 
work hard all their lives, and their children after them, 
to pay the money which that bondautocrat, that money 
tyrant, made up of commercial thieves, financial gamblers, 
quartermasters, commissaries, government contractors, 
substitute-buyers, generals who, instead of fighting, spent 
their time stealing cotton, pianos, spoons, and insulting 
innocent women ; and political scoundrels who spent the 
people's time and money selling themselves to big whisky 
distilleries, big manufacturies, and owners of railroads 
and canals ! I say woe unto the politicians who demand 
that the working men of the country will be slaves them- 
selves, and make slaves of their children, in order that 
these thieves and liars may be their masters ! 

Why, look at the enormity of the thing I Whilst the 
working men were in the army suffering, bleeding and 
dying, many of their families at home, suffering too, 
these bondautocrats were at home, eating, drinking 
and feasting. The war is over; the laboring people are 
maimed, halt and blind. Their families are clad in the 
habiliments of mourning. The expenses of living have 

27* 



§18 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

become so great, and the taxes so high, that with all their 
T3rudeDce and industry t(^ey can hardly live. The bond- 
autocrats, on the other hand, are revelling in every species 
af excess. They dress finer and live higher than any 
aristocracy in the world. Is this in accordance with the 
laws of eternal justice? Does honor demand it? Is it 
just, is it right, that an event which happens to a nation 
should be to the many a curse, a mildew, a blight, death, 
mourning, poverty and slavery ; and that the same event 
should be to th« few^ a blessing, a god-send, a feast, a; 
revel, a dance? If from such an event these bondauto- 
crats have reaped so rich a harvest, won't they want an- 
other one to happen soon ? Are the people blind, that 
they cannot see how monstrous this thing is? Because 
this money-aristocracy did, by bringing a war on the 
country, bleed labor until rivers of blood flowed from its 
veins, therefore have they a right to make labor work on, 
weak as it from loss of blood, and to distil its drops of sweat 
into delicious wines to cheer their revels and their feasts. 

Oh, my God, is man trliy child for whom thou hast done 
so much to make him wise and happy, still blindly,' still 
madly, and foolishly bent on his own ruin ? For eigh- 
teen hundred years thou hast by special efforts sought to 
make him free and happy, to make him thy child, with 
full title to all blessings which are promised to thy chil- 
dren ; and yet does man foolishly and blindly prefer to 
be the dupe of hireling priests, the tool of political scoun- 
drels, and the pack-mule to carry the stolen plunder of 
bojpdautocratic thieves. Where are the watchmen who 
were set to guard the citadels of freedom ? Where are 
the ranting enemies of aristocracy ? Where are the friends 
of freedom and humanity, who used to invoke the om- 
nipotent powers of the human soul to break the shackles 
off the arms of the poor negro. Where are the Greeleys, 
the Beechers, and Phillipses? Gone over to the bondaut- 
ocracy all, — all gone. K 

Let Mr. Phillips speak for himself, for he is the greatest 
man among them, — at least he used to be. He was en-' 
dowed by nature with a noble intellect which I once al"-'' 
most idolized. Nature gave him, too, a large soul, which 
I joved. Alas, poor old man, he ha?s laid his soul under 



THE SIXTH WIT JS ESS. 319 

the glaring light of gold, and it has become parched and 
shriveled. His mighty intellect, guided no longer by 
that purest of all lights, the insixration of the soul, no 
longer restrained by its benevolence and charity, like a 
star cut loose from its orbit rushes grandly, yet madly 
and blindly, through the realms of space. How poor and 
barren does the intellect become, when the heart which 
supplies it with the wine of feeling, that makes its thoughts 
sparkle, is frozen over with ice of anger and revenge I 
Mr. Phillips has permitted his love of the slave to degen- 
erate into a hatred of the master. No intellect can have 
right perceptions of truth, when the heart which mars it 
is governed by revenge and hatred. The source of all 
truth — the great moral cosmos — is God, and God is love. 
By the law of love each particle of matter is kepi in its 
place. By it the earth holds to its bosom each speck of 
dust and every pebble. By the law of love the stars are 
kept in their place in their ceaseless rounds. And by this 
law of love the human soul is kepi in its sphere, while 
it revolves around its great centre, — its source, its God. 

But let Mr. Phillips speak for himself. Here is his own 
language, taken from a speech delivered before the Anti- 
Slavery Society at their thirty-fifth anniversary, celebrated 
in New York; "But, as I said to-day a moment ago, 
God had placed us this hour in the hands of more inex- 
orable laws than Congress or the Republican party. We 
are to-day in the hands of justice. We are to-day in the 
hands of political economy. The great selfish forces of 
the nineteenth century have grappled this negro question, 
and I know that the negro is safe ; that he has a better 
right than anybodv else to fold his hands in content and 
serenity, because the lips of Providence proclaim to-day, 
'Only be just, and you will be strong.' " Is to-day the 
first time, Mr. Phillips, that the lips of Providence have 
proclaimed the divine truth, " Only be just, and you will 
be strong'^ ? 

Did not the lips of Providence proclaim it thousands 
of years ago that Noah was a just man, and God made 
him strong to mount up in a deluge of w^aters which was 
drowning the world, and ride serenely on its waves ? Did 
not the lips of Providence proclaim it thousands of years 



320 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

ago, that Abraham was jnst? that he believed m God, 
and God made him a great nation, and promised that 
through him the world should be redeemed and set free ? 
Did not the lips of Providence proclaim it that Moses 
was just? and God delivered him and his people, and 
brought them out of their enemies' laud with a high hand 
and outstretched arm. Did not the very lips of Provi- 
dence proclaim it eighteen hundred years ago, Be just, 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neigh- 
bor as thyself, and thou shalt become the child of God, 
and the brother of his Son, the Prince of Heaven. Be- 
lieve in me, and whatsoever you ask the Father in my 
name, he will give it to you. Be my disciples, and all 
power on earth shall be given to you, so that whatsoever 
you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and what- 
soever you love on earth shall be loved in heaven. Did 
not the lips of Providence proclaim it through Martin 
Luther in the sixteenth century, " Only be just, and you 
will be strong; accept me as your God, and my laws to 
rule over you, and I will make you individually pure and 
upright, and as a people I will make you free and prosper- 
ous and happy? Has not the lips of Providence pro- 
claimed it constantly in the history of nations since that 
time, " Only be just, and you will be strong" ? for just in 
proportion to the extent to which the nations of Europe 
and America have accepted God as their God, and the 
Bible as the guide of their lives and the rule of their 
actions, just to that extent have they been free and happy. 
For six thousand years the lips of Providence have 
proclaimed by the history of every nation and generation 
of mankind, " Only be just, and you will be strong." 
And by the downfall of kings and by the broken frag- 
ments of empires floating upon the ocean of time, the 
lips of Providence have proclaimed it to the world for 
thousands of years: The wicked shall be turned into 
hell, and all the nations that forget God. But notwith- 
standing these proclamations were made by the lips of 
Providence six thousand years ago, and notwithstanding 
they have been repeated in the history of every nation 
which has lived in the world since that time, man does 
still refuse to heed them, man does still refuse Jo be just. 



THE SIXTH WITNESS. 321 

Ay, Mr. Phillips himself, instead of listening to the lips 
of Providence, which speak to the world in thunder-tones 
to-day, turns to listen to the false and deceitful promises 
of human philosophy. 

" We are to-day," he says, *'in the hands of justice; 
we are to-day in the hands of political economy." Politi- 
cal economy I — the great selfish forces of the nineteenth 
century have grappled this negro question, and I know 
the negro is safe. For six thousand years political econ- 
omy, or the great selfish forces of the world, have been 
trying to save mankind. Heaven sent to his chosen people 
wise men, prophets and apostles to save them, and while 
they heeded these messengers from Heaven they were 
safe. But as soon as they turned from them and trusted 
in political economy, or the great selfish forces of this 
world, their destruction came. Heaven sent to heathen 
nations wise men, lawgivers and great poet-prophets to 
teach them wisdom and virtue, and as long as they were 
willing "»to be just," to accept these laws from Heaven 
and practice them, they were safe. But as soon as the 
devil persuaded them to trust in the great selfish forces 
of this world, they went speedily to destruction. Hun- 
dreds of years B.go political economy, or the great selfish 
forces of the world, went into the jungles of Africa, 
hunted down the negro like wild beasts, crowded thou- 
sands of them into holds of ships, transported them to 
Europe and America, and sold them into perpetual 
slavery. These selfish forces soon set them free in the 
northern sections of the United States, and in Europe, 
because it would not pay. But because it did pay, these 
same selfish forces held on to slavery in the Southern 
States of America and in Cuba. 

In 1861 political economy, or the great selfish forces 
of the nineteenth century, divided the people of the United 
States into two great armies, and led them into a four 
years' war to determine, not whether freedom or slavery 
should be the law of this Western World, but whether 
negro slavery or white slavery should predominate. The 
history of the times will show that the great selfif<h 
forces which brought on that war did not intend to abol- 
ish the one system of slavery which then existed in the 
o* 



322 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

Soutb, but to establish another. The design of the war W€i9 
not to abolish the individual slavery which existed in the 
South, but to make slaves out of the Southern States. 
This is the spirit which dictated the war; we have 
twenty-five millions of people, and you have only twelve; 
we have the power, and therefore will we make you 
obedient to our laws, tributary to our interest. 

Long before the late war the power of the government 
bad passed out of the hands of the people m\JO the hands 
of the great moneyed monopolies of the country. So 
completely did the slaveocracy have control of things in 
the South that the election of a constable often turned on 
the relation of the candidates to the question of slavery 
and their record on that subject. Just so it was in the 
North. The rich bankers, merchants, and manufacturers 
controlled the political affairs so absolutely that no man 
could be elected constable unless his notions were right 
on questions affecting their interest. In the South the 
negro ruled everything, and in the North money ruled 
everything. Here were two great powers set up in the 
same nation, each one ruling its section as absolutely as 
the czar of Russia. In its very nature power is ambi- 
tious and selfish. It wants to rule, not merely for the 
sake of ruling, but because the right to rule empowers it 
to use its subjects for its own purposes and pleasure. I 
like to have power over my horse, not for the purpose of 
feeding him and currying him, but for the purpose of 
riding him. I do indeed feed and curry him, but this is 
only that he may be able to turn more nimbly to the pull 
of the rein and bound forward with more power and 
speed at the touch of the spur. 

After these two great powers, " these two great selfish 
forces of the nineteenth century," got possession, each one 
of its own section of the country, they did each one want 
to get possession of the other section ; for power is never 
satisfied. It wants always to be extending its empire and 
dominion. It was the determination of these two powers, 
" these two great selfish forces, ^^ to rule the people of the 
Vnited States, which brought on the terrible war through 
which we have just passed. Man proposes, but God dis- 
poses. 



THE SIXTH WITNESS. 32«i 

The history of tlie times will show to the satisfaction 
of any reasonable and fair-minded man that the poiitica) 
economy of the North did not design the abolition of 
slavery when it declared war. Its object was to per-] 
petuate slavery in this country by consolidating- its power 
and enlarging its authority. Because it was plain that 
the object of the war on the part of political economy in 
the North w^as not to set the negro free, but to make 
slaves of the white people of the South, the millions of 
the white freemen in that section opposed it with all their 
hearts. For the same reason the masses of the people in 
the North did not enter heartily into the war. They saw 
it was a war of the aristocracy. The money power of 
the North, the merchants and bankers and manufacturers, 
bad not only made the laboring people of their own sec- 
tion tributary to them, but by a system of tariffs they 
drew a large revenue from the staple products of the 
South — cotton more especially. The unmeaning and 
nonsensical catchwords Union and national life had been 
worn out by politicians in their buncum speeches. And 
that other word which falls as gratingly on the ears of a 
freeman as it does sweetly on the ears of tyrants; that 
word which only servile lips can speak graciously, that 
word which is associated in the minds of Americans with 
the name of Benedict Arnold and the tory enemies of our 
revolutionary fathers, that word which our fathers ex- 
punged from our political dictionary, — I say that word 
Loyalty, which every freeman must spit out of his mouth 
with scorn, had not yet been popularized in this country. 

How will the children of this generation blush when 
in reading the history of these times they shall find that 
word "loyalty," hateful to all but those who are ready to 
bow the pregnant hinges of the knee that thrift may fol- 
low fawning, as pat in the mouths of the fathers as oaths 
in the mouth of a swearer and obscenity in the mouth of 
a blackguard. The cry of the old flag did to kindle the 
fire of war. but there was not fuel enough in it to keep it 
burning. The war was about to be a failure. The "great 
selfish forces" of the North which started it could not 
carry it on successfully. Tliey, in their extremity, ap- 
pealed to the anti-slavery element of^that section. They 



324 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

appealed to that deep religious element in the bosom of 
man which loves freedom and hates slavery wherever it 
is found. There could no longer be any doubt about the 
result of the war. ''Political economy" had virtually 
failed, but another power had entered into the contest. 
The human soul, like a bursting flood of fire, poured down 
upon the rebel lines. And while we could not but look 
with wonder and admiration upon the splendid genius and 
daring heroism which defended those lines to the last, 
yet behiri'd those living walls of fire we heard the lash 
of the slave-driver and the piteous cry of the poor slave. 

Ah, yes, it is well enough to call on the human soul, 
as Wendell Phillips and others did, to go to those awful 
places and do that fearful work. "Political economy" 
don't go there. There is a terribleness in the battle-field 
which nothing can endure but the human soul. Look at 
that battle-line, and see on every brow a pale tremor. 
Each mortal eye sees a ghostly messenger holding up 
before it a summons to the spirit land. It would, turn 
and flee from the dreadful sight, but some invisible spirit 
moves it on. Some hope of future good, some promised 
land which it saw once only dimly and indistinctly, comes 
out vividly and distinctly before it. This mysterious 
power, this invisible spirit, is the human soul. " Political 
economy," the great selfish forces of the nineteenth cent- 
ury, don't do such things or go to such places. No, no; 
it is only man who hath within him a living soul, a spark 
of being which will survive not only the ruin of battle- 
fields, but the destruction of the universe; it is only man 
who can do such things. 

I repeat it, when those great things were to be done, 
so many dangers to be encountered, so much suffering 
and privation to be endured, Wendell Phillips and the 
rest of them did not call on " political economy" and the 
great selfish forces of the nineteenth century, they called 
on man and the great unselfish' forces planted in the hu- 
man bosom by the hand of God. They called on man 
and his lov*e of justice and his love of liberty. " Political 
economy" stayed at home and made money; it got rich. 
But now that the war is over, and all the hard work is 
done, it comes forward, and through those so-called friends 



THE SIXTH WITNESS. 325 

of freedom and humanity, the Phillipses, Beechers, and 
Greeleys, it impudently claims all the credit. After 
man, by all the suBering of a four years' war, liberates 
the negro, those friends of freedom and humanity, the 
Greeleys and the Phillipses, coolly tell him, We have no 
further use for 3^ou. You indeed did set the negro free, 
but we are not willing to trust the preservation of his 
freedom to you. We will commit that matter to political 
economy, "the great selfish forces of the nineteenth 
century." 

Are you not ashamed, Mr. Greeley and Mr. Phillips, — 
you, who were so long and so eloquently advocating the 
rights of man as a person, a living soul, against the 
wrongs of corporate tyrannies and political despotisms, — 
are you not ashamed to desert him now ? Are you not 
ashamed, after having taught your fellow-men to look to 
you as the friends of their rights, to trust you as their 
leaders, to betray that trust? Are you not ashamed to 
desert man and pay obsequious court to that mighty des- 
potism which has trampled under its feet the liberties 
and happiness of man for thousands of years? Political 
economy, the great selfish forces of the nineteenth century 
— what are they doing for man wherevei«vthey have 
power? 

A few years ago the Emperor of China said to the 
world. We are willing to trade with you, to be friends 
with you, but you must not sell opium to our people. It 
makes them drunk; it poisons their minds and bodies ; 
it makes them, filthy and degraded. The Christian world, 
so called, disregarded this modest request, — so wise and 
just and proper in itself. The emperor determined to 
sacrifice the profits of trade rather than the moral and 
physical welfare of his people (what Christian power 
would have done as much?), closed his ports. " Political 
economy," with its great selfish forces, avarice, gun- 
powder and steam, demanded of the emperor to open his 
ports so that they could sell their opium to his people. 
He refused, and they forced them open, demolishing his 
defenses, and bombarding his towns until they were 
buried in ruins. 

Look at Europe to-dav, grappled by the great selfish 
28 



326 THE GREAT TKfAL. 

forces of the nineteenth century. Take the British Em 
pir6, which boasts about as loudly of freedom and human- 
ity as Horace Greeley and Wendell Phillips, and what 
exhibition of justice does political economy make tliere ? 
Leaving out her distant colonies, her population is about 
thirty millions. Political economy has put the landed 
estate of that vast empire into the hands of about fifty 
thousand persons, and made the millions who work their 
lands dependents and slaves. A few hundred thousand 
more own the manufacturing, financial, and commercial 
wealth, whilst the millions of workingmen and clerks 
who carry on these establishments are their dependents 
and slaves. Look at Europe, with its three hundred 
millions of human beings. *' Political economy" has put 
all the wealth and power of that vast empire into the 
hands of a dozen royal families and their aristocratic 
cousins, the nobility. They dress in purple and fine 
linen, and feast upon the fat of the land, whilst the toil- 
ing millions, for whom the Creator made the earth and 
the fruits thereof, eat the crumbs which fall from their 
tables. One of the great selfish forces of the nineteenth 
century which "political economy" has devised, is a 
standing aj-my of six millions to protect these kings and 
aristocracies, these robbers and plunderers of mankind. 

Yet, yet degraded men, the expected day 
That breaks your bitter cup seems far away. 
Trade, wealth, and passion ask you still to bleed, 
And holy men give Scripture for the deed. 

And what has political economy done for the negro? 
It has hurried hundreds of thousands of them to untimely 
graves. It has turned hundreds and thousands of them 
out of doors, houseless, homeless and friendless. It has 
sent its agents, the carpet-bag spies, to set traps and snares 
for them, baited with false promises and false professions 
of friendship, and put behind them its military satraps to 
drive them in whether they will or not. The negro with 
all his ignorance is finding out this cheat, and turning 
back to his old taskmasters, who, notwithstanding all the 
wrongs he imposed on him, never denied him raiment and 
food, and a shelter from the storms of heaven. Political 



THE SIXTH WITNESS. g2| 

economy, instead of making the negro free, has only 

changed the nature of his servitude. It has taken him 

out of the hands of his old master, who had some heart 

I and some feeling for his wants and necessities, and put 

i in the hands of a great political power, which has no 

heart and no soul. A corporate body, which under the 

false name of national life, national debt, or some other 

j great national blessing, so called, uses the negro and every- 

, thing else it grapples^ to work out its own ambitious pur- 

j poses and selBsh ends. 

And what has political economy done for the white 
. men of the South, the children of Patrick Henry and 
I Thomas Jefferson, the children of the great men who 
shook, by the thunders of the Declaration of Indepen- 
jdence, the thrones of tyrants throughout the world? 
I What has political economy done for these people, our 
! brothers, to whom Heaven gave the richest and sunni- 
, est land in the world, driving out before them the wild 
Indians, the native inhabitants, as it had done the heathen 
nations before the children of Israel ; these people to 
whom their fathers had bequeathed the heritage of free- 
dom purchased at the cost of their blood? Political 
economy has reduced these people to abject and un- 
conditional slavery. And as if this was not enough to 
gratify its malicious hate and malignant revenge, Tt has 
set over them, to insult them and put them to open shame, 
the half-savage negro, their former slaves. That Heaven 
permitted the savages of Africa to be enslaved as the 
only means of educating them in the principles of religious 
liberty, I have not a doubt; because for hundreds of 
years all other efforts to civilize and Christianize them 
have failed. This effort only has succeeded. But when 
they were sufficiently educated to be relieved from the 
harsh restraints of slavery, the slaveholders refused to 
liberate them. 

For this wickedness, we believe, the Almighty in his 
anger visited upon them the terrible destruction which 
has just passed over them. If it was so great a crime to 
hold the half-civilized negro in bondage after he was fit 

to be free, if these people who held him in slavery, a 

people who were educated from their childhood to believe 



ggg THE GREAT TRIAL. 

that slavery was right—if these people, with so many ex- 
tenuating circumstances in their favor, were so terribly 
scourged for not liberating their slaves as soon as they 
were tit to be free, what is the enormity of our crime, 
and what will be the measure of our punishment, who 
have subjected to a worse slavery a people born free, 
and educated as highly as any people in the world in the 
principles of civil and religious liberty ? A worse slavery 
did I say ? Yes, ten-fold worse. Slavery is to be 
measured both by the nature of the servitude and by the 
character of the slave. Servitude is easy for the child ; 
to the full-grown man it is repugnant ; and to the man 
who has spent years and years in the enjoyment of the 
privileges of freedom, servitude is intolerable. To the 
savage negro from the jungles of Africa, slavery was 
easy ; to the American negro, educated for generations in 
the principles of Christian liberty, educated to the free- 
dom of the full-grown man, slavery was repugnant; but 
to the American white man, who was rocked in the cradle 
of liberty, who claimed its privileges and immunities in 
his childish sport, servitude is most intolerable. And 
yet upon this white man we have imposed slavery. 

Now look for one moment upon the nature of the ser- 
vitude. It has been customary for tyrants, who have 
scourged and cursed the world, to put over their con- 
quered provinces to rule them, military satraps. Follow- 
ing this rule of heathen and savage nations, we would 
have left the Southern people under the rule of officers 
of our own army, who are or ought to be at least gentle- 
men and Christians ; but we have subjected these people 
to the shame and ignominy of being ruled by their for- 
mer slaves, and the filthy scum of our own society, the 
carpet-baggers. This crime may justly claim pre-emi- 
nence in barbarity. It has no parallel in the history of 
human affairs. 

When I remember that an Almighty power rules oven 
human affairs, and distributes to each individual and 
each nation even-handed justice, I tremble for my country. 
When I remember that this crime has been done in the. 
name of heaven's prince,— when I see this foul blasphemy 
flaunted against the sky, when I hear the hilarious boast- 



THE SIXUI WITNESS. 329 

ings of the tyrants and usurpers, and see them desecrating 
at their druken revelries holy vessels consecrated to liberty 
and to truth, — the Declaration of Independence, — the 
Constitution of the United States, and even the Bible 
itself, — I say when these horrid blasphemies and foul des- 
ecrations come before me, I hear in the mutterings of the 
angry wave which still beats over the ruins of ancient 
Babylon, Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. The perpetra- 
tors of these crimes will laugh at this, so did Belshazzar 
thousands of years ago, and the revelers at his drunken 
feast; but the yawning earth swallowed up the city of 
Babylon, and the overflowing of waters hides its ruins 
from the face of men. The same Almighty power rules 
the world to-day. Ay, but a little while ago, that same 
hand of Omnipotence which none can stay seized the 
coast of South America, shook it to pieces, and sprinkled 
it like dust in the deep waters of the ocean. 

And what has political economy, or the great selfish 
forces of the nineteenth century, done for the white man 
of the North? It has. destroyed his ancient Democracy, 
and built on its ruins a consolidated despotism. It has 
destroyed the partial social equality he once enjoyed, and 
divided society into two separate and distinct classes. It 
has made out of labor a mud-sill, and built on it the most 
avaricious and hateful aristocracy the world ever saw. 
It has put into the hands of this bloated bondautocrat, 
this upstart tyrant, every political faction, every religious 
hierarchy, and every corporate body in the country. It 
has made mammon god, and commanded everybody to 
worship him. It has put all the wealth and power 
into the hands of the few financial thieves, commercial 
gamblers, their priestly advisers and political tools. It 
has robbed the millions and made them poor, and right 
on the heels of this, it has set up money as the measure 
of merit, and thus made poverty a crime. It has made 
every legislative body in the country a gambling-house, 
where millions are spent every year, and filled the country 
with tax-gatherers to extort from labor money to pay the 
cost. It has converted the cities into licensed whore- 
houses. It has stripped from woman the veil of chastity 
thrown round her by a kind Providence to shield her 

28* 



330 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

frailty, and sent her forth an impudent and barefaced thing, 
repulsive to every pure and virtuous mind. It has 
dragged her forth from the sacred privacy of domestic 
life, where, as a wife and mother, her smiles are as genial 
and as strengthening as the sunshine of spring, and her 
tears as healing as its gentle showers, and sent her forth 
into the streets to fisticuff and wrestle with the rabble 
rout who follow the heels of political demagogues. 

Yes, woman, whom we once loved as a mother, a 
sweetheart, a wife, boldly proclaims to the world her 
infamy, and boasts of her degradation. An American 
woman, speaking for her sex, declares to-day through 
the public press of this country, " that it is more honor- 
able for a woman to' be a mistress than a wife." Yes, it 
is more honorable for a woman to be the slave of every 
drunken, licentious, lecherous brute who comes along, 
than the wife of a virtuous man and the mother of his 
children. Did I say the wife of a virtuous man? Ay, 
there's the rub. No, it is because the men of this country 
have ceased to be virtuous, because they have ceased to 
be noble and upright as God made them, that woman has 
been permitted to fall so low as to be unconscious of her 
own shame. These great " selfish forces" have broken 
the sacred bonds of matrimony, add made divorces al- 
most as common as marriages. 

It has even thrust its iron hand do\^n into the depths 
of the human heart, and ruthlessly torn out the most 
beautiful and s-acred sentiment which Heaven has planted 
there — parental affection, and made child-murder almost 
as common a thing as births. 

But my soul sickens at this disgusting detail. Let the 
great laboring masses of the North, — the many who are 
working at half-wages for the few, — sit down and think 
for one hour, and they will know better than I can tell 
them that political economy, or the great selfish forces 
of the nineteenth century, has reduced them to a conn 
dition of slavery more galling and more degrading than 
that which holds the Southern negro in bondage. 

I must pause just here to notice one other remark of 
Mr. Phillips, for this is the key to that fallacious system, 
that vile and corrupt system of public morals, which has 



THE SIXTU WITNESS. 331 

poured such a flood of v*ice and crime over this countrr 
and over the world. Mr. Phillips says, quoting from the 
philosopher Horace Greeley, " There is corn enough in 
Alabama to feed the whole South ; but there is not brains 
enough to move it." Again he says, " There has not been 
a white man born at the South within thirty years who 
could manage a large mercantile house. That takes brains, 
and the South always hired its brains." To move a thou- 
sand millions bushels of wheat from Chicago, that takes 
brains. Suppose this thing were true, Mr. Phillips, and 
suppose, if true, it were dishonorable to the South, would 
it be amiable, would it be generous, even as heathen na- 
tions understood generosity, to taunt these people with it 
in the hour of their misfortune? And oh, how harshly doe^ 
it fall on the ears of one who has been educated in that 
divine system of truth whose great lesson is: Love thine 
enemy. But when we know that it is not true, when we 
see on the very face of the thing the evidence of wilful 
and deliberate falsehood, then indeed does it come with a 
bad grace from one who is professedly a teacher of purer 
morals and nobler truths than the world has ever yet 
practiced. " There has not been a white man born at the 
South within thirty years." Why within thirty years, 
Mr. Phillips ? Did you not wilfully and deliberately limit 
the time to thirty years for two reasons ? 

First, because you know that if hundreds of men had 
been born in the South with massive brains within the 
last thirty years, that the world would not know it, be- 
cause it takes more than thirty years, in ninety-nine cases 
out of a hundred, for great brains to be developed. How 
very few great intellects are fully ripe at the age of 
thirty? And after a great mind is fully matured, how 
long and hard does it have to fight its way up before it 
reaches fhat high position where the world can see it? 
In the second place, Mr. Phillips limited the time to thirty 
years so as to shut out of the count such men as Wash- 
ington, Jefferson, Marshall, Andrew Jackson, Clay, Cal- 
houn, Stonewall Jackson, and Robert E. Lee. Were not 
all these men born and educated in the South ? And 
were they not all white men ? But Mr. Phillips knew 
that unless by some disingenuous trick, unworthy of an 



332 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

honest man, and much more unwortliy of one who sets 
himself up as a great moral teacher, he made this false- 
hood plausible, it would have offended even the credulit}' 
of the willing dupes into whose gaping mouths he was 
spitting his filthy slang. But these few short sentences, 
like all the sugared pills which the tools of bondautocracy 
fix up for the people, contain another poison more than 
that which I have already exposed. There has not been 
a white man born in the South within thirty years who 
could manage sl first-class mercantile establishment. 

Here we find the measure by which Mr. Phillips meas- 
ures brains. And what is it? Would you believe it? — 
a yard-stick. A yard-stick to measure brains with I I 
wonder if he didn't get this idea from Butler's cranium ? 
It is flat on top, and about three feet from stem to stern. 
And then from the way he managed his cotton establish- 
ments and his spoon establishments in the South (I won- 
der if any of those brainless Southern people caught the 
idea while he was operating?), I would suppose that he 
could manage a first-class calico house in the North. I 
once thought (but that was before the world got so wise), 
that Washington, Adams, Marshall, Hamilton, Jefferson, 
Henry, and, of later times, Webster, Clay, Randolph, 
Calhoun, and Andrew Jackson had brains. I looked 
upon the power and skill which those intellectual giants 
exhibited in their contest on the battle-fields, in the Senate, 
and in the forum, as proof of brains. But the wise re- 
formers of our day measure brains by a man's skill in 
measuring calico. 

Imagine for a moment a large mercantile house in Bos- 
ton. Mr. Adams runs the machine; John Marshall, 
Alexander Hamilton, and John Randolph are clerks. 
Imagine Randolph standing behind the counter dressed 
according to the latest fashion, his head shampooned, and 
his moustache twirled in the most approved style. See him 
not as of yore, binding his brow with the old bandana, — 
like an athlete at the Grecian games, the dark brow and 
flashing eyes presaging wrath to his foes, but see him pull- 
ing from his pocket a white linen kerchief, with a delicate 
pink border, and as highly perfumed as a " barber's shop.'' 
See him bowing and scraping in the most obsequious 



THE SIXTH WITNESS. 333 

manner to every new-comer, charming him with airs of 
affected politeness, forced smiles, and picked-up compli- 
ments unmeaning and undeserved. See him twitching a 
piece of flimsy calico in the most tasteful manner, and at 
the same time giving his unskilled country customer the 
most positive assurance that it will not fade nor wear out. 
See the expression of doubt and indecision in the face of 
his customer, who is forced to decide, either that this man 
is trying to cheat him, or else he himself is blind. See 
Mr. Randolph seizing the opportune moment, and calling 
up Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Marshall to confirm every 
statement he has made about the goods, and thus decide 
the doubtful question in the mind of his customer. See 
Mr. Adams standing at the desk, pretending to write, but 
really chuckling over the smartness of his clerks. Hear 
Mr. Adams congratulating Mr. Randolph upon his won- 
derful exhibition of brains, and promoting him to chief 
clerk of the first-class mercantile establishment, or to the 
position of silent partner in the concern. 

Look at this picture. See in it Mr. Phillips's ideal of 
brains, and then laugh at the poor people of the South, 
because they have got no brains. Managers of first-class 
mercantile houses, who are they but those who, more 
skilled thao their fellows in the tricks of the trade, have 
succeeded in putting off on tb^eir unskilled customers a 
greater number of bolts of fading calico and damaged 
cloth ? What have they done to show their brains ? What 
monument have they built? They have gone to Fifth 
Avenue, or some other choice spot, piled up a bigger heap 
of brick and mortar than anybody else, and given it an 
odder shape. They have filled its rooms with gaudy 
furniture, covered its floors with Brussels carpeting, hung 
its ceilings with sparkling chandeliers and its walls with 
polished mirrors and numerous pictures, which make up 
by the high price paid for them what they lack to the eye 
of genius in tasteful selection, correct likeness, and artistic 
execution. And whilst this modern Shylock is eagerly 
counting his gains at midnight, the mother of his children, 
having hired a nurse, is feasting and coquetting at those 
fashionable revelries where questionable manners and 
more questianable morals are freely indulged. Ay, by 



334:; THE GREAT TRIAL. 

express agreement, some whiskered pandoor, some musked 
and powdered poltroon, some Count Deception, or Dandy 
Jim is carrying around tliis silked and jeweled puppet to 
show to the world the trophies of a brain which manages 
a first-class mercantile house. 

Mr, Phillips says ** it takes brains to move a thousand 
million of wheat from Chicago." Why, Mr. Phillips* 
would not mules do as well ? would not even oxen do ? 
Oh, no, says Mr. Phillips, it takes brains ; I once thought 
George Washington, who piloted our ship of state so suc- 
cessfully through the storm of war, and who kept it in 
the true track in its beautiful voyage on the great ocean 
of peace, had brains. Sir Isaac Newton, who applied the 
great law of Love which governs the moral world to na- 
ture, and thus found out many of its hidden mysteries, 
who upon the wings of faith soared into the azure vaults 
counted the stars and measured their magnitude and dis- 
tances, — I thought he had brains. I thought Shakespeare 
had brains ; he who strung his great harp with the finest 
chords of the human soul, and with a touch divine struck 
from it strains of melting melody. And Benjamin Frank- 
lin, who, guided by the same spirit which gave Wash- 
ington power, Newton wisdom, and Shakespeare inspira- 
tion, snatched lightning from heaven and hitched it to 
the mail car of the world, — these men, I once thought, 
had brains. But Mr. Greeley and Mr. Phillips had not 
then enlightened the world with their great moral ideas. 
The wonderful success of these great men in the higher 
walks of life I took for evidence of brains. 

But Mr. Phillips thinks diiferently ; he must subject 
them to the test of his new philosophy. With the as- 
sistance of Caesar and Pompey — not they of Roman cele- 
brity I mean, but they of African scent — he takes the 
four great men to Chicago and hitches them to a big four- 
horse wagon ; Caesar and Pompey, his men, load the 
wagon with wheat ; he puts Pompey on the wagon to 
drive the team and move the wheat away ; Pompey 
mounts the wagon, draws the line, cracks the whip and 
shouts at the top of his voice, " Get up dare." But the 
horses don't git, and the wheat don't move. Pompey 
springs to the ground, and, with the indignant air of an 



IIIK SIXTH WITNESS. .ggg 

offended freednian, declares dis nig-ger ain't gwine to 
drive dat baulkj team ; it can't pull nuffin no how, 'cais 
it ain't strong enough. " Pompey," says Mr. Phillips, 
" you come to the right conclusion, but you reason badly ; 
it is because they have no brains that they can't move 
that wheat." "Brains, does you say, Massa Phillips!" 
answered Pompey, somewhat surprised at this new idea ; 
" brains, does you say, Massa Phillips ! why, my old massa 
what libs down Souf is got four mules, and da can move 
dat wheat from Chicago fasser dan dis nigger can crack 
a whip ; and does you call dat brains ? yah 1 yah I yah 1" 

Methinks the afflicted people of the South, like the 
afflicted patriarch of Israel, may well exclaim. Oh that 
mine enemy would write a book ! Surely they may be 
proud to hear it s«id of them that they are incapable of 
putting their intellect, the noblest part of their being, to 
such vile uses. One word more, and I will leave Mr. 
Phillips to that retributive justice which never fails to 
overtake the man who, from the narrow motives of hate 
and petty revenge, prostitutes a noble intellect to the 
dirty work of deceiving his fellow-men and leading them 
into error, folly and crime. 

The reason why the pulpit of to-day is second-rate as 
compared with one hundred years ago, why colleges are 
tame, and editorial sanctums are stupid, is because the 
magnificent industrial interests of the country are so full 
of brains. What a confession is this for Mr. Phillips to 
make ! what a sad commentary upon the wnsdom of our 
new teachers — Mr. Greeley and Mr. Phillips— which to- 
day govern this country. Ancient philosophers — Lycur- 
gus, Solon, I^uma, Socrates, Homer, Plato and Virgil, 
among the heathen nations ; and Moses, Solomon, Davi(l 
and the prophets among the children of Israel, and the 
noblest of all philosophers, the heavenly messenger 
Christ and his apostles ; and in modern times, the Ham- 
dens, and Burkes, and Miltons, and Shakspeares, and 
Luthers of Europe; and the Washingtons, Adams, Jef- 
fersons, and Henrys of America, — I say all these great 
men, whose memories are revered as the benefactors of 
their kind, used the great brains which God gave them 
to instruct their feliow-men in lessons of virtue and truth. 



336 ^'^^^'^ GREAT TRIAL. 

The great effort of all was to lift the mind <^ man from 
earth to heaven ; to teach men to subdue the animal na- 
ture, and to cultivate those afifections of the mind and 
heart which beautify and adorn human nature. The 
great Master himself taught : Lay not up for yourselves 
treasures on earth where moth doth corrupt, and thieves 
break through and steal ; but lay up for yourselves treas- 
ure in heaven; for where your treasure is there will your 
heart be also. Ay, he even bade one who would be 
perfect in the truth, Go and sell that thou hast, and come 
and follow me. How follow me ? why, go into all the 
world and preach my gospel to every creature. Go and 
teach thy fellow-man what his duties are to his brother 
and to his God. Go and teach him that beautiful truth 
which will lift him above the accidents of fortune and 
all the evils of this life. The apostles, martyrs, and other 
good men sacrificed not only all the good things of the 
world, but even their own lives, to persuade their fellow- 
men to believe these beneficent truths. Our patriot 
fathers pledged their fortunes, their sacred honors, and 
their lives even, to preserve these truths from the de- 
stroying hands of kingcraft and priestcraft. 

But the tiew philosophers who are to-day ruling this 
country, the Beechers, Phillipses and Greeleys, have put 
the brains of the country to measuring calico and haul- 
ing wheat. Thomas Jetferson used his great brains to 
teach his fellow-men those personal and individual rights 
and privileges which would make communities and na- 
tions free and happy; he lived poor, and died poor, com- 
paratively ; his deep, broad brains spread over the world, 
and were spent in the efi'ort to make all men free and 
happy ; he left the measuring of calico to the small-brain, 
narrow-soul, pick-up-penny Shylocks, and the wheat-haul- 
ing he left to his negroes and his oxen. Had he thought 
only of himself, and devoted his vast intellect — an intel- 
lect so busy in invention, so versatile in application — to 
the tricks of money-gambling or commercial stealing, he 
might have robbed his fellow-men of money enough to 
make a fortune as big as that of the Rothschilds. Had 
he been governed by *' political economy" or the great 
selfish forces of the eighteenth century, he might easily 



TiiK SIXTH wiry-Ess. aat^- 

have bequeathed to his family a fortune of millions, but 
as he was governed by unselfish forces of love for man- 
kind, he chose rather to bequeath to the world, as a rich 
inheritance for all men, The Declaration of Independ- 
ence, and the Great Democracy of America. 

Thomas Jefferson fills my notion of brains ; Wendell 
Phillips takes a different stamp of man for his model: 
Stewart of New York, the prince of the yard-stick no- 
bility, the biggest measurer of calico, who by the tricks 
of the trade has amassed a fortune of fifty millions. 
Fifty millions would buy hundreds of houses and hun- 
dreds of farms — big enough and good enough for the 
Father of American Democracy ; but Wendell Phillips's 
ideal of brains, this greedy, selfish aristocrat, wants it all. 
How many fine houses can be built I But he can't use 
them all. Oh, no, his fellow-men who are rich can buy 
the ^se of them, and the poor, the wretched, the friend- 
less children of earth, they can be crammed away in the 
cellars and garrets. To this picture Mr. Phillips points 
exultingly, and says, Here is brains, here is freedom and 
humanity, here is liberty and equality! 

But there is another reason why the pulpit, the rostrum, 
and the forum are so dull and stupid, so barren of good 
results. These places have become the hireling agencies 
of the great money-power which rules this country. The 
pulpit teaches the people to worship mammon as their 
god, and the colieges, the editorial sanctums, the hust- 
ings and the Senate teach the people to practice all those 
immoralities and crimes and follies which avarice and 
licentiousness beget. The teachers of the people, instead 
of warming their own hearts and the hearts of the people 
with the life-kindling fires of love and truth, do dazzle 
their eyes with the false glare of power and riches. 

I care not how bright the intellect may be, if it has 
not the genial warmth of love and truth it has no power 
to give life and beauty to anything. Take away from 
the sun that genial warmth, — the touch of love which 
wakes up nature and bids her come forth clad in the 
beautiful verdure of spring, — and nature would sleep on 
forever. Ay, the rivers and fountains of waters would 
freeze up, the ocean would become a solid mass of ice, 
p 2 'J 



338 THE GREAT TRIAL, 

and the world itself would die. So under the light of 
the brightest intellects: if they are not warmed by the 
kindling fires of love and truth, the stream of human 
aflfections freezes up, and man himself becomes as cold, as 
barren, and as fruitless as the dead world. And as long 
as man shall believe that his chief end, his great duty, is 
not to glorify Grod and honor him forever, not to love his 
fellow-man and to try to make him good and happy, but 
to measure calico and haul wheat, he will be the slave of 
his own low passions, and, as a necessary consequence, 
the dupe of priestcraft, the tool of politicians, and the 
pack-mule of a heartless and unfeeling aristocracy. God 
is a jealous God, and will not give his glory to another; . 
and the nation which turns away from serving him to 
serve mammon, — the nation that forgets to keep his law, 
— he will turn into hell, I care not how great may be its 
power or how dazzling the splendor of its riches. 

The Greeleys and Beechers and Philiipses, who used 
to be, honestly and sincerely, the friends of man, as 
against the great corporate bodies and moneyed monopo- 
lies which have made him a slave all over the world, 
have deserted him^ They seemed to think that their 
mission ended with the abolition of negro slavery. In 
noble minds victory begets magnanimity, but they, in the 
hour of their triumph, have given themselves up to ma- 
levolence and revenge; they have ceased to be the friends 
of freedom and humanity, and have become petty tyrants 
and despots. After having advocated the rights of man 
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, until they 
succeeded in liberating four millions of African slaves, 
they attempt to show to the world the beauties of that 
truly divine system of philosophy by subjecting eight 
millions of freemen to a worse system of slavery than" 
that from which they have just delivered the negro; and 
under the light of their great intellects, warmed no 
longer by the touch of love, the pomp of power and the 
splendor of riches will shine; but man, an individual 
being, a person with aflfections and feelings and wants, — 
man, a living soul, — will freeze in his rags and die of 
starvation. 

Their souls, contracted by hatred and revenge, have 



THE ST J Til WITNESS. 339 

become too narrow to comprehend the divine mission of 
Truth, and her destiny to triumph over the world. 
Gloriously they led the army of freedom for years and 
years, but as soon as they demolished one of the out- 
posts of slavery, they began to rob the dead, to kill the 
wounded, and to shackle with the chaius of military rule 
all who fell into their hands, both friends and foes, — ay, 
they turned traitor -to the great cause, boldl-y proclaimed 
their treason to the world, and set about building up 
again the -bulwark of slavery which they had just de- 
molished. They have made it a great citadel to defend 
the usurpations of power as against the individual rights 
of man, and the peculiar privileges of the few as against 
the inalienable rights of the many to life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness. They have converted the 
South into a vast fortress, shackled the white people 
with the chains of civil disabilities, conscripted the 
negroes and armed them with a forced vote, and hung 
out from its high battlements a flag with this inscription : 
" People derive their privileges from the power that rules 
over them. Gold for the few and depreciated paper for 
the many. No taxes for the rich, but more taxes for the 
poor. Wealth, power, and licentiousness for the bondau- 
tocracy. Poverty, slavery, and beggary for the people." 
But shall the marshalled hosts of freedom surrender be- 
cause their ancient leaders have betrayed and deserted 
them ? Shall man consent to be a slave because tyrants 
decree it? Hath not heaven decreed otherwise? 

"Say, was that lordly form inspired by thee 
To wear eternal chains, and bow the knee?" 

Shall we tamely surrender the liberties bequeathed to 
us by our fathers? — ay, the inalienable rights given to 
us by the Creator? Shall the great laboring millions of 
this country become the pack-mules of an upstart aris- 
tocracy? Shall men, who would not permit even the 
half civilized negro to remain in slavery, consent to be- 
come slaves themselves ? 

" Hark ! the stern captive spurns his heavy load, 
And asks the image back that Heaven bestowed; 
Fierce in his eye the fire of valor burns. 
And »8 the slave departs the man returns." 



340 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

Already new leaders are springing up. Boldly are 
they rushing to the front, and rall^'ing and organizing the 
veteran legions who were thrown into a momentary eon- 
fusion by the treason and desertion of their former lead- 
ers. Among the boldest and most fearless in the army 
of freedom to-day is the young Democrat from the North- 
west. He was, indeed, opposed to the late war, and so 
was every true and sincere lover of freedom in the North. 
Th^ object of the war was most unholy. It was power 
and gain. If Heaven, in its providence, has overruled 
the purposes of man, and destroyed negro slavery, no 
thanks to man. 

But negro slavery is not yet destroyed. The negro 
to-day even, according to Mr. Phillips, is in the hands of 
"the great selfish forces of the world," — a harder task- 
master than the old slave-driver, — a master which has 
remanded to slavery the negroes of the South, and sub- 
jected to slavery the white people of the South and the 
great masses of the white people of the North. This 
young champion of liberty is a host in himself. The 
shafts "of his wit and the bursting shells of his scorn are 
death and destruction to the enemies of man. To use 
his own favorite expression, " They are red hot!" No 
wonder they are " red hot." They are heated in the 
furnace of the human heart. His arrows are pointed 
with the steel of truth. They pierce when they strike, 
and, armed with the grappling barbs of honesty, they 
hold fast. The Greeleys and Phiilipses and Bennetts 
and Raymonds wonder at the hardihood of this young 
champion of freedom, who has dared to attack despotism 
in the very citadel of its power. They are astonished to 
hear him ring out, in loud clarion tones, and in the burn- 
ing fervor of his heart, the old war-cry of liberty and 
equality for the toiling millions of mankind, — a war-cry 
which it would seem they used hypocritically to deceive 
and humbug their fellow-man. They are astonished, too, 
to see the laboring millions, whom they looked upon as 
ignocaut dupes, to be bridled and haltered by them to 
carry the burdens of their masters, — the bondautbcrats, — 
guided by that intuition which, among the masses, in 
times of great popular excitement, is like inspiration, 



THE SIXTH WITNESS. 341 

turning away from them and rallying around the new- 
leader, who is with them, not only in name, but heart 
and soul. 

And yet we have one objection to this fearless defender 
of the truth. He sees the truth. He admires its beauty, 
— ay, he loves it with an ardent fondness; but he don't 
seem to know where it comes from. He traces it to 
Magna Charta and the Declaration of Independence, and 
there he stops. Under the Magna Charta the great 
masses of the English people to-day are slaves; under 
the Declaration of Independence the great masses of the 
people of this country to-day are slaves. The great 
Magna Charta is the Bible. The great Declaration of 
Independence to mankind is the New Testament. This 
is the pure, pellucid stream at which our fathers quenched 
their thirst for liberty. Voltaire and other infidel philoso- 
phers led their people to the stream of human reason, 
and they found its waters bitter and poisonous. Those 
men saw the truth, but did not know whence it came. 
They saw the fields of liberty, with their teeming har- 
vests, — their delicious fruits and fragrant flowers, — but 
they did not know what produced them. 

They remind me of a crazy man. His house stood on 
a high eminence, and a beautiful landscape spread out 
before it. In the spring of the year he would light a 
lamp and hang it out, and persuade himself that it was 
his lamp that made the grass grow, the flowers bloom, 
and clothed the trees with foliage. He refused to believe 
that it was the great sun of heaven which clothed the 
earth in beauty. So do these philosophers, when they 
see the beautiful fruits and flowers of liberty which 
spring up under the genial sunlight of Christian truth, 
hang out their Magna Charta and Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and say. These are the sources of liberty and 
happiness to mankind. It is the mission of Christianity 
to set man free, and she will accomplish it, because the 
God who rules in the armies of heaven, and doeth his 
will among the inhabitants of earth, has commissioned 
her and sent her forth. 

The slaveocracy of the South was attacked first only 
because it was one of the weak and isolated outposts of 

29* 



^4a THE GREAT TRIAL. 

despotism. The great citadel of her power is the divine 
right of priests and kings and ai'istoeracies to make 
slaves out of the souls and bodies of men who are the 
children of God, and who owe allegiance only to the 
Prince of the House of David. The mighty river 
Euphrates, which is the chief defense of this great 
Babylon, is the wealth of the world. To-day, like Bel- 
shazzar and his drunken revelers, the kings and princes 
and aristocracies and bondautocracies of the world are 
eating and drinking and feasting in the palaces of this 
great city. Ay, how many of them are using, at their 
licentious revelries, the golden vessels and the silver cups 
and spoons, — the spoils of other nations and people whom 
they have robbed and plundered? But mighty as her 
power is she must fall, for strong is the Lord God who 
judgeth her. "And I will make driink her princes, her 
wise men, and her captains, and her rulers, and her 
mighty men, and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and 
shall not awake," saith the King, whose name is the Lord 
of hosts. 

When political economy, or the great selfish forces of 
the nineteenth century, are ruthlessly trampling under 
their feet millions of human beings, when millions are 
being robbed and plundered and murdered, it would seem 
:^elfish for one to stop to tell his personal wrongs, and yet 
my evidence would be incomplete without it. After po- 
litical economy or the selfish purposes of power and gain 
had plunged this country into civil war, it commenced 
driving man its slave out to the battle-field, to do its 
3vil deeds of murders and robbery, and to suffer the awful 
consequences, privations, — wounds, disease and death. 

These grea/t selfish forces, with one of its iron hands, 
the draft, seized me, tore me from my family, and sent 
me to the South to rob white men of rights and privi- 
leges which I believed the negro even was entitled to. 
Although I had no worldly possessions, yet was I rich. 
1 had an excellent wife, who had been the queen of my 
boyish dreams, whose constancy and truth had lightened 
my griefs in time of trouble, whose tears of sympathy had 
fallen on my heart, chilled by the cold wind of doubt and 
uncertainty, like, the warm showers of spring upon the 



TUB SIXTH WITNESS. 343 

frozen ground, — a wife whose smiles had lent an inde- 
scribable charm to the sunny hours of life, and four beau- 
tiful children. My oldest daughter of thirteen summers 
was as beautiful as a mortal may be. Her large soft- 
blue eyes, her auburn tresses, her quick elastic step, and, 
above all, her sweet, gentle, confiding spirit, Mary, who 
will be the guardian of that wondrous beauty, so power- 
ful and yet so frail, when thy father is gone ? Whose vir- 
tuous mind will draw around thee the veil of chastity, as 
the pure sun of heaven draws his misty veil around the 
tender beauty of his virgin daughter, spring 'i who will 
keep thee spotless and pure, to be the loving bride of 
some nobleman, — poor, it may be, like thy father, in 
money and goods, but rich in his love of the Beautiful 
and the Good? And yet did " political economy" say of 
nje, and millions like me, they are only ''poor white 
trash ;" it don't matter if they do have to go to war and 
be killed, they have nothing to live for. 

I went to the war; no, I was driven into it by the 
"great selfish forces of the nineteenth century." I went 
with a heavy heart, not only because I left so much be- 
hind that was precious to me, but also because my own 
conscience told me the war was a cruel wrong. 1 trem- 
bled when I heard the thunder of battle, for to my guilty 
conscience it was the trumpet of judgment. I shunned 
a fight whenever I could; and whenever I was forced 
into it I did not fire a gun. But after awhile the proc- 
lamation came out liberating the negro. That changed 
the whole current of my feeling. 1 thought I saw the 
hand of Providence in the thing. Before, when I went 
into a. fight, the wives and little ones of my white brothers 
in the South would come before me, and plead for the 
lives of tlieir fathers, for their homes and their firesides, 
and then I could not, 1 dare not, strike a blow. But after 
the proclamation, I heard, in the hour of conflict, coming 
up from behind the stone wall of Southern pride and 
Southern heroism, the lash of the slave-driver and the 
piteous cry of the poor slave. 

A new spirit took possession of me and hurried me to 
the front in every fray. A little while before the war 
closed, both of my arms were torn off. I was sent to a 



344 IliE GREAT TRIAL. 

hospital, and remained there till the war was over. I 
started home with a light heart, for I thought that my 
country would now indeed be the land of the free and the 
home of the brave. Not only would all white men be 
free, but even the negro too. Just then I was willing to 
shake hands with the Southern people, — forget the past, 
and give them not false promises, but the substantial good 
of a hearty peace and sincere friendship. Ay, I would 
have been proud to meet as friends and brothers men who 
with mighty odds against them had so long maintained the 
unequal contest by their heroic daring and splendid genius. 

Little did I think then that I had given my blood, my 
arms, and so much suflering, to make the negro the slave 
of " political economy, or the great selfish forces of the nine- 
teenth century ;" to make the Southern white man the 
slave of his slaves and their masters, the carpet-baggers, 
and myself and my children the slaves of a heartless 
and unfeeling upstart bondautocracy. No, I started home 
fully persuaded that when the storm of war passed away 
the sunshine of an enduring peace would find all free and 
happy. 

When I reached home my family crowded around me, 
and greeted me with tears of joy. Of joy, did I say ? — 
ah, no, one bitter recollection made these tears, — tears of 
burning shame. Where is Mary? No one answered 
me ; and then the painful truth burst on my mind — 
she is dead. In my absence death, with his cruel scythe, 
has visited our little home and cut down its fairest form 
of sublunary bliss. It happened after I was wounded, 
and they were afraid to tell me, lest this heart-wound 
added to my wounded arms would be too much for me to 
bear. Yes, my Mary is dead. 

As I said this, I turned to ray wife to mingle my tears 
with hers as I had often done of yore. Alas, poor woman, 
she will weep no morel Too hard a blow of grief and 
shame had broken the fountain of her heart, and poured 
out all its tears. For the sake of her children she had 
clung to life with more than natural strength until she 
could hand them over to me. That dreadful hour had 
come. She let go and fell into the grave. The young 
man who was drafted when I was, but did not go be- 



THE SIXTH WITNESS. 345 

cause he was rich, and could hire a substitute, com- 
menced visiting our family after I left, under the pre- 
tence of benevolence. Yes, he would be to them in my 
absence a husband and a father. His covetous heart, not 
satisfied with all his wealth, had fixed its greedy eyes on 
my little lamb. With fascinating airs and false promises 
he charmed my little lamb from its fold. He devoured 
her beauty, robbed her virtue, and turned her out an 
accursed thing upon the world. Ay, he drove her to 
one of those caverns of hell where the robbers of virtue 
hide their prey. 

A little while afterward she was bought, — yes, my 
daughter, — while her father was fighting for liberty and 
equality, — my daughter was bought for a price in the 
land of freedom and humanity, with hundreds of other 
slaves, to be shipped and sold in the New Orleans market. 
To be the slaves not of Christian men and women, as the 
negroes were for whose freedom I was fighting, but to 
be the slaves of the beastly lusts of men, and of those 
fierce unbridled passions which feed upon the human 
soul, even in this world, like the worm which dieth not 
and the fire that is not quenched. Yes, seven hundred 
of these slaves, the sisters and daughters of men who had 
just returned from a crusade against slavery in the South, 
started from New York for the New Orleans market in 
one steamer. And God Almighty, as if to startle us 
from the dream in which we have been sleeping, as if to 
wake us from the fatal delusion that holds us, as if to 
bring even before our blind eyes the wicked inconsistency 
between our professions and our practice, parted the 
waves of the sea and swallowed them up. 

Poor outcast friendless children of earth, when I stand 
upon the shores of this wicked city in a stormy night, 
and look out upon the deep waters, methinks I see your 
unforgiven spirits, shrouded in the foam of the angry wave, 
and hear them muttering fearful revenge against this 
modern Babylon. My daughter ! oh, my daughter ! When 
the soldier uttered these last words, he gave himself up 
to the powers of grief, and shook like a man with the 
ague. And I saw a frown dark as an angry cloud gather- 
ing on the face of the stern judge who sat upon the throne. 



846 THE ORE AT TRIAL. 

Presently the soldier lifted up his weeping eyes to 
heaven, and exclaimed, "God of mercy, give me patieTiee 
to bear these evils, or thou, eternal justice, give me back 
my right arm, and \ will strike a blow that will make 
tyrants tremble and liberty smile again 1" The soldier 
then turned to the other two soldiers, and addressed them 
as follows: "Why have we been enemies? Why have 
we wounded and killed one another? Did we not have 
a common country and a common heritage of freedom 
bequeathed to us by our fathers? Was it not my interest 
and 3^our interest to preserve these rich blessings, instead 
of destroying tbera ? Is it fit that we should kill one 
another, destroy our own freedom, and rob our children 
of the great blessings which our fathers left for us and 
for them, — ^tbe right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness? In destroying the great democracy of 
America, hav€ we not robbed mankind — the down- trodden 
and oppressed of every nation and kindred and tongue — 
of a refuge and a home? Our fathers read the Bible, 
and worshiped the God of the Bible, and he gave them 
this goodly land for an inheritance. 

Some of these good men were called Catholics, some 
Presbyterians, some Priends, som« Episcopalians, some 
Baptists, and so on. But no matter by what name they 
were called, or in what land they lived; they did refuse 
to worship the gods which kings and priests set up for 
them to worship. The Catholics of England refused to 
worship the gods which Bishop Cramner and King 
Henry had made and set up for all the people of the 
British Empire to worship, and because they refused to 
worship these gods, they were proscribed and persecuted ; 
therefore did they flee to the wilderness of America. 
The Protestants in the other States of Europe refused to 
w^orship the gods which the kings of these States and 
the pope had made and commanded them to worship. 
Por this cause were they proscribed and persecuted ; 
therefore did they flee to this country, then a wilderness, 
inhabited by savage men and wild beasts. Here could 
tliey worship, unmolested, "the God wiio made man, 
and in whose hands bis breatih is." These good men, 
taking the wo^i^d of God for the rule of their conduct and 



TUE SIXTH WITNESS. 347 

the guide of their lives, met together and made the best 
government the world ever saw. The nations of the 
earth looked upon that government with wonder and 
admiration. They wondered how it was possible for life 
and property to be so safe in a country where everybody 
was free. 

How was it possible for order and peace to flourish in 
a land where there were no wise kings and virtuous 
aristocracies to enlighten and lead the vulgar herd (as 
the common people v/ere called), and no standing array 
to drive the ignorant masses, by brute force, to be honest 
and peaceful ? Our fathers reasoned in this wise : We 
worship the true God, We keep his law. We love our 
fellow-men, and do not try to rob them. Everybody is 
left free to work for himself, and free to enjoy the fruits 
of his industry. Therefore is everybody got enough. 
Everybody is happy, and why should anybody break the 
peace ? We have no ambitious kings or gi-eat political 
powers to make war on neighboring states to gratify 
their pride, their envy, or their hatred ; to rob and plunder 
and oppress. W^e have no lords and dukes and princes 
to quarrel about their titles to honor and preferment, and 
thus involve their people in civil war. We have no 
political faction — -the hireling tools of great moneyed 
monopolies — to gamble six months out of every year for 
the benefit of their masters, and then to fill the land with 
swarms of tax-gatherers to rob the laboring millions to 
pay the cost. How is it that so great a change has come 
over this country ? How have we brought so many and 
so great evils on ourselves ? 

In the first place, we forgot the God who blessed our 
fathers. Instead of listening to his Word, which he 
revealed to man to make him wise and happy, we lis- 
tened to priestcraft and their cunningly-devised words of 
human wisdom. They taught us lies. They lulled us 
to sleep with the opiates of infidelity. They bewitched 
us. They mesmerized us, and handed us over in that 
condition to the politicians. The politicians were the 
tools of the slaveocracy of the South or the great 
moneye^ monopolies of the North. In order to please 
their masters and promote their interest, the politicians 



348 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

taught us lies. They taupfht us to hate one another. 
They dragged us to the battle-field and put us to kiUiug 
one another. And oh, what a harvest of woe have we 
reaped! Hundreds of thousands of our brothers per- 
ished! Tens of thousands hobbling on crutches or 
swintring their handless arms! The whole land filled 
with fathers and mothers weeping, like Rachel, for their 
children, and refusing to be comforted because they are 
not I Our ancient Democracy destroyed, and a military 
despotism built up on its ruins! Then free States gov- 
erned by military satraps ! A cruel, heartless bondauto- 
cracy rules the land ! It has bought with its gold — the 
plunderings of an unholy war — every political faction, 
every priestly hierarchy, and every corporate body in the 
country. It has made mammon god, and commands 
everybody to worship him. It offers daily on the altars 
of this god every affection of the human soul and every 
virtue of the human mind. Every obligation, every 
pledge, every vow, is sacrificed here. The obligations 
of friendship, the pledge of love, the vows of matrimony, 
and that sweetest and purest and tenderest of all earthly 
sentiments, parental affection, are daily offerings upon the 
altar of this accursed idol 

And to feed this greedy idol, this gluttonous Bel, and 
his servile ministers, — the priest, the politician, and bond- 
autocrat, — the toiling: millions are robbed and plun- 
dered to beggary and starvation, — ay, truth itself has 
been exiled, and liberty weeps in chains. Soldiers, for 
such vile purposes have we been used as tools by others. 

Let us resolve that it shall be so no longer. Instead 
of being enemies, let us be friends. Instead of destroying 
one another to please political economy or the great 
selfish forces of the world, let us destroy these powers 
which are the enemies of mankind and the enemies of 
God. For this purpose let us, like our ftithers, pledge to 
each other our hearts and hands, our lives, our fortunes, 
and our sacred honor. 

The other two soldiers came forward and said: "We 
have no fortunes except the rights of those we love; and 
we have no hands, but as a pledge of our honor \^e offer 
these stumps. They once had hands on them; those 



THE SIXTH WITXESS. 349 

lands grasped a pledge, and held on to it until they were 
,orn ofiF." And I saw the three soldiers touch the stumps 
)f their arms together, and a holy fire was kindled in 
heir eyes, and sparks flashed from them, — the sparks of 
he human soul kindled by the touch of truth. 

And then I heard him who wore the semblance of 
IVashington say, " When Greek meets Greek on the 
Dattle-plain, 'tis then the tug of war begins ; but when 
jrreek meets Greek in the confederacy of friendship, who 
shall make war on them ? — the priest, the politician, and 
;he bondautocrat ? Woe to them, if they do I" 



30 



360 THE GREAT TRIAL. 



THE SEVENTH WITNESS. 

A WOMAN clothed with the sun, and the moon under 
her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. 
Her name was the Genius of Christianity. She said the 
Almighty who was King of kings and Lord of lords 
had sent her to earth thousands of years ago, to bring* ^ 
back his rebellious children. 

Abraham and Moses and David had accepted her as a 
messenger from Heaven, and the Great King had blessed 
them with showers of blessings. He led them out from 
their enemies' country with a high hand and an out- 
stretched arm, with signs and wonders and mighty power 
he delivered them from those who served themselves of 
them. He gave them a land flowing with milk and honey, 
a land of oil and wine. For greatness and glory and 
prosperity, he made them the envy of the world. But 
when the children of Israel became great and prosperous 
they forgot me and the God of their fathers who had sent 
me. Then the Almighty did send their enemies to kill 
them, to make tiieir country and their great city heaps of 
ruins, and to carry them away captive into distant lands. 
When they repented of their sins and turned away from 
serving idols, gods of silver and gold, and asked the God 
of their fathers to be their God, the Almighty would break 
their enemies to pieces, and deliver them out of their ene- 
mies' hands. But when the fullness of time came, I 
brought forth a man-child who is to rule all nations with 
a rod of iron, and his name is the Word of God. 

And because the Jews refused to receive him as the 
Mess-iah, they persecuted me, and sought to destroy me. 
1 fled to the Gentiles into the wilderness, where a place 
was prepared for me. When the great dragon, the old 
serpent the devil, found me out, he sought to destroy me. 
He stirred up against me the hatred of his two great 
ministers, kingcraft and priestcraft, the beast and the 
false prophet. 



THS SEVENTH WITNESS. 351 

r -It wdstbeo I went to an bnrtibleand devout CbriPtian, 
Christopher Columbus, and held up before his eyes a map 
of the New World, the promised land, the Canaan of the 
Gentiles. The philosophers and wise men of the world 
laughed at him and mocked him as one who had lost bis 
wits; but he, charmed by the vision of eternal beauty 
which floated before his mind, heeded tbem not. Fear- 
lessly he gave himself up to the winds and waves. Fear- 
lessly he pressed on, triumphing over the storms of the 
sea and the mutiny of his crew, until the vision was lost 
in the wondrous reality. Then, too, did I reveal myself 
to Luther, Melanchthon, and other devout men, and they 
went forth to prepare the world to receive the Word, as 
a power from on high to redeem man from the curse of 
sin and from the power of the devil. But when they 
preached the truth, it stirred up the anger of the world. 
The great powers of the world, priestcraft and kingcraft, 
sought to destroy the truth, because they knew when it 
should be established in the world their empire would be 
gone. But the powers of the world were not able to con- 
tend with the Word: everywhere they were overthrown. 

Then the old serpent the devil came to their aid. What 
we can't do by force, we will do by cunning, he said. 
We can't contend against the Word, because bis name is 
Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting 
Father, The Prince of Peace. I will whisper to Luther 
that Christianity means consubstantiation and synodical 
government. I will tell Calvin that Christianity means 
election, final perseverance, and a presbyterial form of 
government. I will t«il Cranmer that the doctrines of 
Calvin will do with an episcopal form of government; 
yes, I will persuade these that they must have some visible 
organization, some corporate body, some human institu- 
tion to defend themselves. If we can once persuade them 
to put their trust in human institutions, and in the kings 
of this world, instead of the Word and that King whose 
name is the Lord of Hosts, we can overthrow them. 

The devil was right. As soon as he persuaded his ene- 
mies to drop the Word, which is the sword of the Spirit, 
and to take up the weapons of human reason and human 
philosophy, their victories ceased. His friends, kingcraft 



352 . THE GREAT TRIAL. 

and priestcraft, no longer had to fight the Word, but Cran- 
merisni, Calvinism, Lutherism, and Methodism and so 
on. When these powers found that they could no longer 
contend with priestcraft and kingcraft aided by the devil, 
they too sought the help of the devil, and Protestantism i 
became a bigoted and pharisaical persecutor. It was then 
that I fled to the New World, which was then a wilder- 
dess, into my place. My children who were persecuted 
for the truth^s sake fled with me. From the seed of the 
truth which was planted there sprung up the tree 
of liberty. The people sheltered themselves under its 
branches, and ate its fruits, which were virtue and happi- 
ness and peace and prosperity. 

But the people of this country have forgotten the God 
of their fathers. Instead of trusting in his Word which 
has power to make them wise and virtuous and happy, 
they have put their trust in priestcraft and political power. 
Their fathers believed in the Word, and they were free; 
but their children believe in priestcraft and political 
power, and they are miserable slaves. These agents of 
the devil have set up mammon for them to worship. 
This idol is their god. He selects their presidents, their 
governors, and all their rulers for them. He rules over 
their legislatures, their executive and judicial bodies, all 
their political organizations, all their religious sects and 
creeds, and all their social institutions. It has put every 
man to stealing and robbing, and plundering his fellow- 
men, because a man is honored and esteemed just in pro- 
portion to the amount of riches he can take from his 
fellow-man (no matter by what means) and ofi"er it upon 
the altar of mammon. The tree of liberty which grew 
and flourished in this land is become barren and fruitless. 

And yet these people boast that they are free. Yea, 
they have even set free their former slaves, the negroes I 
How free ? The negroes who used to sell for a thousand 
dollars, and up to three thousand, can be bought to-day 
for a side of pork or a grist of meal. And it is not his 
body which is bought to do honest work, but his convic- 
tions of right, — his soul, to do the work of political rob- 
bers and thieves. Ay, white men are bought as cheap. 
The rich buy the people to put power into the hands of 



^THE SEVENTH WITNESS. 353 

heir tools, the politicians, and then they buy the politi- 
;ian to rob the people to make themselves richer. 

The devil thinks by the help of these powers he will 
h'ive me out of America. I fled from him out of Asia 
into Europe, and out of Europe into the wilderness of 
America. But he cannot drive me hence. This is my 
home, and here I will live forever. The God who rules 
n the armies of heaven, and doeth his will among the 
inhabitants of earth, hath decreed it, and who shall annul 
bis decree? His Son hath established his kingdom here, 
and he wiil rule forever. It was he who planted the tree 
of liberty here, and it will bloom and flourish forever. 
The fullness of time hath come, and he will come and de- 
stroy the powers of this world and of the devil, and 
establish his kingdom on earth. His kingdom shall be 
an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion shall have no 
end. He comes no longer as the babe of Bethlehem. 
He conies no longer as the humble and despised Naza- 
rene. He comes no longer to be spit upon and mocked 
and scourged and crucified by his enemies. He comes as 
the Prince of the House of David, the King of kings 
land Lord of lords. And the earth shall shake at his 
coming, and the powers of this world shall be thrown 
down, for the thunder is his, and the lightning and the 
earthquake and the volcano and the sword of battle. 

And the Judge who sat upon the throne opened the 
Book and delivered the judgment. The Book was called 
the Law and the Prophets, — the Scriptures of truth. And 
this was the judgment he delivered: 



30* 



354 THE GREAT TRIAL, 



THE JUDGMENT DELIYERED FROM THE 
GREAT THRONE. 

Hear, heavens, and give ear, earth, for the Lord 
hath spoken. I have nourished and brought up children, 
and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his 
owner, and the ass his master's crib, but Israel doth not 
know, mj people doth not consider. 

Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed 
of evildoers, children that are corrupters ; they have for- 
saken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of 
Israel unto anger ; they are gone away backward. Why 
should ye be stricken any more ? ye will revolt more and 
more ; the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is 
faint : from the sole of the foot even to the head" there is 
no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises, and putrifying 
sores ; they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither, 
mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate, your 
cities are burned with fire ; your land, strangers devour* 
it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown br 
strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage 
in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a 
besieged city. Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us 
a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, 
and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. 

Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom ; give 
ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah I To 
what purpose is the multitude of sacrifices unto me ? saith 
the Lord. I am full of the burnt-ofi'erings of rams and 
the fat of fed beasts, and deligjat not in the blood of 
bullocks, or of lambs or of he-goats. When ye come to 
appear before me who hath required this at your hand to 
tread my courts. Bring no more vain oblations, incense 
is an abomination unto me ; the new moons and sabbaths, 
the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with, it is ini- 
quity, even the solemn meeting; your new moons and 



THE SEVENTH WITNESS. 355 

your appointed feasts my soul hateth, they are a trouble 
unto me. I am weary to bear them. And when )'e 
spread forth your hands I will hide raine eyes from you ; 
yea, when ye make many prayers I will not hear, your 
hands are full of blood. 

Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your 
doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to 
do well ; seek judgment ; relieve the oppressed ; judge the 
fatherless ; plead for the widow. Come now, and let us 
reason together, saith the Lord ; though your sins be as 
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though they be 
red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing 
and obedient ye shall eat the good of the land ; but if ye 
refuse and rebel ye shall be devoured with the sword, for 
the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. How is the faith- 
ful city become an harlot, it was full of judgment — right- 
eousness lodged in it, but now murderers. Thy silver is 
become dross, thy wine mixed with water. Thy princes 
are rebellious and companions of thieves ; every one 
loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards ; they judge not 
the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come 
unto them. 

Therefore, saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the 
mighty one of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine ad- 
versaries and avenge me of mine enemies. And I will 
turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy 
dross, and take away all thy tin. And I will restore thy 
judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the be- 
ginning ; afterward thou shalt be called the city of right- 
eousness — the faithful city ; Zion shall be redeemed with 
judgment, and her converts with righteousness. And 
the destruction of the transgressors, and of the sinners,, 
shall be together, and they that forsake the Lord shall 
be consumed ; for they shall be ashamed of the oaks 
which ye have defeired, and ye shall be confounded for 
the gardens that ye have chosen ; for ye shall be as an 
oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no 
water. And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker 
of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and 
none shall quench them. 

Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is 



356 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

there auy end of their treasures ; their land is also full 
of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots. 
Their land also is full of idols: they worship the work 
of their own hands, that which their own fingers have 
made. And the mean boweth down, and the great man 
humbleth, therefore forgive them not. 

Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear 
of the Lord and for the glory of his majesty. The lofty 
looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of 
men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be 
exalted in that day; for the day of the Lord of hosts 
shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon 
every one that is lifted up, and he shall be brought low. 
And upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and 
lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan ; and upon all 
the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted 
up ; and upon every high tower, and upon every fenced 
wall, and upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all 
pleasant pictures ; and the loftiness of man shall be bowed 
down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low, 
and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day ; and the 
idols he shall utterly abolish. And they shall go into the 
holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth for fear 
of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty when he 
ariseth to shake terribly the earth. In that day a man 
shall cast his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which 
they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles 
and to the bats. To go into the clefts of the rocks, and 
into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord and 
for the glory of his majesty when he ariseth to shake ter- 
ribly the earth. Cease ye from man, whose breath is in 
his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of. 

Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, 
prophesy, and say unto them, — 

Thus saith the Lord God unto the shepherds, Woe be 
to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves ; should 
not the shepherds feed the flocks? Ye eat the fat, and ye 
clothe you with the wool ; ye kill them that are fed, but 
ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strength- 
ened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither 
have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have yc 



THE SEVFiYTJI WITNESS. 357 

brought again that which was driven away, neither that 
which was lost ; but with force and with cruelty have ye 
ruled them. And they were scattered because there is no 
shepherd, and they became meat to all the beasts of the 
field when they were scattered. My sheep wandered 
through all the mountains, and upon every high hill ; 
yea, my flock was scattered upon the face of the earth, 
and none did search or seek after them. Therefore ye 
shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. As I live, saith 
the Lord God, surely because my flock became a prey, 
and my flock became meat to every beast of the field, be- 
cause there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds 
search for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, 
and fed not my flock. 

Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. 
Thus saith the Lord God : Behold I am against the 
shepherds, and I will require my flock at their hand, and 
cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall 
the shepherds feed themselves any more, for I will deliver 
my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for 
them. For thus saith the Lord God : Behold I, even I, 
will both search my sheep and seek them out. As a 
shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among 
his sheep that are scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, 
and will deliver them out of all places where they have 
been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. And I will 
bring them out from the people, and gather them from 
countries and will bring them to their own land, and feed 
them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in 
all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them 
in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel 
shall their fold be. There shall they lie in a good fold, 
and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains 
of Israel. I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to 
lie down, saith the Lord God. I will seek that which 
was lost, and bring again that which was driven away; 
and will bind up that which was broken, and will 
strengthen that which was sick ; but I will destroy the 
fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment. 

And as for you, oh, my flock, thus saith the Lord 
God : Behold I judge between cattle and cattle, between 



358 THE GREAT TRIAL, 

the rams and tbe he-goats. Seemeth it a small thmg 
uuto 3^ou to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye 
must tread down with your feet the residue of your pas- 
tures, and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye 
must foul the residue with your feet? And as for my 
flock, they eat that which ye have trodden with your feet, 
and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet. 

Therefore, thus saith the Lord God unto them: Be- 
hold I, even I, will judge between the lean cattle; be- 
cause ye have thrust wMth side and with shoulder, and 
pushed all the diseased with your horns, till ye have 
scattered them abroad. Therefore will I save my flock 
and they shall no more be a prey, and I will judge 
between cattle and cattle. 

And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he. 
shall feed them; even my servant David, he shall feed 
them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, 
will be their God, and my servant David a prince among 
them. I, the Lord, have spoken it, and I will make 
with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil 
beasts to cease out of the land; and they shall dwell 
safely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. And I 
will make them and the places round about my hill a 
blessing; and I will cause the shower to comedown in 
his season. There shall be showers of blessing, and the 
tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall 
yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land 
and shall know that I am the Lord. When 1 have broken 
the bands of their yoke, and delivered them out of tbe 
hand of those that served themselves of them. 

And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, 
neither shall the beasts of the land devour them, but 
they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid. 
And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they 
shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, 
neither bear the shame of the heathen any more. Thus 
shall they know that I am the Lord their God, am with 
them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are my 
people, saith the Lord God. And ye, my flock, \he flock 
of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the 
Lord God. 



THE SEVLWTIJ WITNESS. 35^ 

Son of man, set thy face Mount Seir, and prophesy 
against it. And say unto it, thus saith the Lord God : 
Behold, O Mount Seir, 1 am against thee, and I will 
stretch out my hand ag-ainst thee, and I will make thee 
most desolate. I will lay thy cities waste, and thou 
shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the 
Lord; because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, aud 
hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force 
of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time 
that their iniquity had an end. 

Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will prepare 
thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee, since thou 
hast not hated blo£)d, even blood shall pursue thee. Thus 
will I make Mount Seir most desolate, and cut off from 
it him that passeth out and him that r'eturneth. And I 
will fill his mountains with his slain men in thy hills and 
in thy valleys, and in all thy rivers shall they fall that 
are slain^ with the sword. I will make thee perpetual 
desolations, and thy cities shall not return; and ye shall 
know that I am the Lord, because thou hast said, These 
two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and 
we will possess it, whereas the Lord was there. 

Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will even 
do according to thine anger, and according to thy envy, 
which thou hast used out of thy hatred against them ; 
and I will make myself known among them when I have 
judged thee, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord, 
and that I have heard all thy blasphemies, which thou 
hast spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, 
They are laid desolate; they are given us to consume. 
Thus with your mouth ye have boasted against me, and 
have multiplied your words against me. I have heard 
them. Thus saith the Lord God, When the whole earth 
rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate. As thou didst re- 
joice at the inheritance of the house of Israel, because 
it was desolate, so will I do unto thee : thou shalt be 
desolate. O Mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of it, 
and they shall know that I am the Lord. 

And I saw one go from the throne bearing three flags, ' 
and he buckled girdles around the soldiers who had no 



360 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

arms, and put the staflf of the flags in the girdles. The 
flags were as white as the sqow, and I looked to see 
what device was on them. It was not States' Rights, 
nor Union, nor Universal Suffrage, nor Subjugation, nor 
Catholicism, nor Protestantism; but across the top of 
the flag was written, in letters of fire, this word, 

Justice. 

And under that word, and on the right hand side, I saw 
an open book, and across its pages was written, 

My Word 
Is Truth. 

And on the left hand side I saw a tree, and across the 
stem of the tree was this device: 

Liberty. 

And I asked the one who had carried the flag why the 
tree was so large and thrifty, and why its foliage was so 
rich and green, and its fruit so large and luscious. And 
he answered me, " Don't you see heaps of manure around 
the roots of the tree. That pile there is the political 
faction, with their armies of office-holders and tax- 
gatherers, and that huge pile is the big load of debt and 
taxation taken off of the backs of the people. And that 
pile there is the ecclesiastical hierarchies, with their 
costly temples filled with theatrical shows, and vanity 
fairs, and merchandise, and pharisaical priests. And 
these ten thousand springs and rivulets which run along 
the base of the tree, to water its roots, was once the 
great Euphrates, — that mighty flood of currency which 
poured from the great banking institutions and huge 
moneyed monopolies. . 

Once this mighty river was the defense of the great 
Babylon, — the home of kings and aristocracies ; but the 
king, whose name is the Lord of hosts, has dried up its 
channel, and made its waters come forth in springs and 
rivulets, so that his servants may drink its waters and 
eat the fruits from the Tree of Liberty, which it fertilizes. 
And that big pile is the innumerable gambling-shops, 
miscalled courts of justice, set up all over the country, 



THE SEVENTH WITNESS. 361 

where men go to play high-die, and pay half the stake 
or the privilege of a throw. 

And that huge pile there is the sins of men ; for when 
men shall turn away from the worship of idols and wor- 
ship that God who made the heavens and earth, the seas 
and fountains of waters, and acknowledge the Prince of 
the House of David as their King, their sins and iniqui- 
ties shall be taken away, and God will write his law upon 
their hearts. 

And I saw one go from the judgment-seat with a hot 
iron, and he branded a name upon the forehead of the 
Great Prisoner. And this was the name branded on 
her forehead — Mystery, Babylon the Great, The Mother 
of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth. And upon 
her minister called the State he branded this name- 
Beast, and upon his minister called the Church he 
branded this name — False Prophet. 

And I saw those that carried the flags, and the mighty 
army that followed them, thousands and thousands, and 
the earth trembled beneath their tread. And they led 
the Great Prisoner and her ministers away to destruc- 
tion. And one from the judgment-seat cried out with a 
mighty, strong voice, saying, Babylon the Great is fallen, 
is fallen, and is become the habitations of devils and the 
hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and 
hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of 
the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth 
have committed fornication with her, and the merchants 
of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of 
her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, 
saying. Come out of her, my people, that ye be not par- 
takers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. 
For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath re- 
membered her iniquities. Reward her even as she 
rewarded you. and double unto her double according to 
works ; in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double. 
How much she hath glorified herself and lived deliciously, 
so much torment and sorrow give her; for she saith in 
her heart, I sit a Queen, and am no widow, and shall see 
no sorrow^ 

Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death and 
Q 31 



aB2. THE GREAT TRIAL. 

mourning and famine, and she shall be utterly burned 
with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. 
And the kings of the earth who have committed fornica- 
tion and lived deliciously with her shall bewail her, and 
lament for her when they shall see the smoke of her burn- i 
ing, standing afar oif for the fear of her torment, saying, 
Alas 1 alas! that great city Babylon, that mighty city; 
for in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants 
of the earth shall weep and mourn over her ; for no man 
buyeth their merchandise any more. The merchandise 
of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls and 
fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine 
wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner 
vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and 
marble, and cinnamon, and odors, and ointments, and 
frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, 
and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, 
and souls of men. And the fruits that thy soul lusted 
after are departed from thee, and all things which were 
dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt 
find them no more at all. The merchants of these things 
which were made rich by her shall stand afar off for the 
fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying, 
Alas ! alasl that great city that was clothed in fine linen, 
and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious: 
stones, and pearls, for in one hour so great riches is. 
come to naught. And every shipmaster, and all the com- 
pany in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea 
stood afar off, and cried when they saw the smoke of her 
burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city ? 

And they cast dust on their heads and cried, weeping 
and wailing, saying, Alasl alas ! that great city wherein 
were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of 
her costliness ; for in one hour is she made desolate. Re- 
joice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and 
prophets; for God hath avenged you on her. And a 
mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and 
cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that 
great city, Babylon, be thrown down, and shall be found 
no more at all. And the voice of harpers and musicians, 
and of pipers an4 tr.ump,eters, si^all b^ heard no more at 



TEE SEVENTH WITNESS. 363 

all in thee ; and no craftsman of whatever craft he be 
shall be found any more in thee ; and the sound of a mill- 
stone shall be heard no more at all in thee ; and the light 
of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee, and the 
voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard 
no more at all in thee, for thy merchants were the great 
men of thee, for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. 

And in h^r was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, 
and of all that was slain upon the earth : and then I heard 
voices, and thundering and lightning, and great hail-storm ; 
so mighty was the storm, and so great the earth shook and 
trembled, and I fell on my face like one that was dead I 

When I came to my senses and looked about me, the 
whole country around me was changed; the hills had 
been shaken to pieces, and the mountains had fallen. The 
mean man had been cast down, the haughty looks of the 
proud man was humbled, and the mighty man had fallen. 
And the great cities with the glory and splendor of their 
riches were consumed in the fires of Heaven's anger, and 
the hills they stood upon were melted down in the hot 
breath of God's wrath. The whole land was like the low 
valley I saw before, which was called the Yalley of Hu- 
miliation, or the journeying through the wilderness to the 
promised land. And the sun shone out upon the valley, 
as warm and genial as the sunshine of spring, and show- 
ers of blessings fell from the heavens. The earth was 
clothed with verdure, and the fields were loaded with 
abundant harvests. The trees bent under their load of 
luscious fruit, the flowers bloomed sweeter than before, 
and the waters murmured their lullaby of peace ; and 
man was no longer the enemy of man, but every man was 
the brother of his fellow-man, and God was the father of 
all. Every man had his own home,— his own vine and 
fig-tree ; there was none to molest or make him afraid. 
Oppression had ceased from the earth, for the oppressor 
was dead. Power was committed to the hands of the 
merciful, and judgment to the hand of the just. 

I went into the houses of men, and all was happiness 
and peace and content. Woman was no longer the enemy 
of man, nor was she striving with him for the mastery. 
She looked into his face and saw there the kindling of the 



864 THE GREAT TRIAL. 

soul, the image of her God ; and she stooped to reverence 
end obey. And woman was no longer the slave of man; 
for man saw in her wondrous beauty and devoted lote 
the companionable virtues which God had given her to 
bless his life and fill his cup with joy. And children no 
longer sought to rule their parents ; they had but to fol- 
low their footsteps to find the ways of pleasantness and 
the paths of peace. Thy kingdom had come, our Father, 
and thy will was done on earth. 

And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise 
our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both 
small and great. And I heard, as it were, the voice of a 
great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as 
the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia, for the 
Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and re- 
joice, and give honor to him ; for the marriage of the 
Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. 
And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in 
fine linen is the righteousness of saints. Also, than Son 
of man, prophesy unto the mountains of Israel and say, 
Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord. 

Thus saith the Lord God: Because the enemy hath 
said against you, aha, even the ancient high places 
are ours in possession I Therefore prophesy and say, 
Thus saith the Lord God : Because they have made you 
desolate, and swallowed you up on every side, that ye 
might be a possession unto the residue of the heathen, 
and ye are taken up in the lips of talkers, and are an ia- 
famy of the people; therefore, ye mountains of Israel, 
hear the word of the Lord God : thus saith the Lord 
God to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and 
to the valleys, to the desolate wastes, and to the cities 
that are forsaken, which became a prey and derision to 
the residue of the heathen that are round about; there^- 
fore, thus saith the Lord God, Surely in the fire of m^ 
jealousy have I spoken against the residue of the heathen 
and against all Iduraea, which have appointed my land 
into their possession with the joy of all their heart, with 
despiteful minds, to cast it out for a prey. 

Prophesy, therefore, concerning the land of Israel and 
say unto the mountains and to the hills, to the rivers, 



THE SEVENTH WITNESS. 365 

and to the valleys, Thus saitb the Lord God : Behold I 
have spoken in my jealousy and in my fury, because ye 
have borne the shame of the heathen : Therefore thus 
saith the Lord God : I have lifted up my hand, surely 
the heathen that are about you, they shall bear their 
ahame. But ye, mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot 
forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people of 
Israel ; for they are at hand to come. For behold I am 
for you ; and I will turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled 
and sown. And I will multiply men upon you, all the 
house of Israel, even all of it; and the cities shall be in- 
habited, and the wastes shall be builded. And I will 
multiply upon you man and beasts, and they shall increase 
and bring fruit. And I will settle you after your old 
estates, and will do better unto you than at your begin- 
nings ; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Yea, I 
will cause men to walk upon you, even my people Israel ; 
and they shall possess thee, and thou sbalt be their in- 
heritance, and thou shalt no more henceforth bereave 
them of men. 

Thus saith the Lord God: Because they say unto you, 
Thou land devourest up men, and hast bereaved thy na- 
tions ; therefore thou shalt devour men no more, neither 
bereave thy nations any more, saith the Lord God. 
Neither will I cause men to bear in thee the shame of the 
heathen any more, neither shalt thou bear the reproach 
of the people any more, neither shalt thou cause thy na- 
tions to fall any more, saith the Lord God. Moreover 
the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of Man, 
when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they 
defiled it by their own way and by their doings: their 
way was before me as the uncleanness of a removed woman. 
Wherefore I poured my fury upon them for the blood that 
they had shed upon the land, and for their idols where- 
with they had polluted it: And I scattered them among 
the heathen, and they were dispersed through the coun- 
tries : according to their way and according to their 
doings I judged them. And when they entered unto the 
heathen, whither they went, they profaned my holy name, 
when they said to them. Those are the people of the 
Lord, and are gone forth out of his land. But I had pity 

31* 



366 ^^^ GREAT TRIAL. 

for mine holy name, which the house of Israel had pro- 
faned among the heathen, whither they went. 

Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the 
Lord God; I do not this for your sakes, house of 
Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have 
profaned among the heathen, whither ye went. And I 
will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among 
the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of 
them ; and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, 
saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you 
before their eyes. For I will take you from among the 
heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will 
bring you unto your own land. There will I sprinkle 
clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean : from all 
your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. 
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I 
put within you : and I will take away the strong heart 
out of your flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, 
and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep 
my judgments, and do them. 

And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your 
fathers ; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your 
God. I will also save you from all your uncleanness: 
and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay 
no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit 
of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall 
receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen. 
Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your 
doings that were not good, and shUll loathe yourselves in 
your own sight for your iniquities, and for your abomi- 
nations. Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord 
God, be it known unto you ; be ashamed and confounded 
for your own ways, O house of Israel. 

Thus saith the Lord God : In the day that I shall have 
cleansed you from all your iniquities, I will also cause 
you to dwell in the cities and the wastes shall be builded. 
And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay.deso- 
late in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall 
say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden 
of Eden: and the waste and desolate and ruined cities 
are become fenced and are inhabited. Then the heathen 
that are left round about you shall know that I am the 



THE SEVENTH WITNESS. 367 

Lord, build the ruiaed places and plant that was desolate. 
I, the Lord, have spoken it, and I will do it. 

Thus saith the Lord God, I will jet for this be in- 
quired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them ; I will 
increase them with men like a flock. As the holy flock, 
as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts ; so shall 
the waste cities be filled with flocks of men : and they 
shall know that I am the Lord. 

And I saw the spirit of truth fly on the wings of the 
lightning across the ocean and kindle a fire in the isles 
of the sea. I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come 
out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of 
the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 
And they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, 
which go forth unto the kings of the earth and the whole 
world to gather them to the battle of the great day of 
God Almighty. And the unclean spirit out of the mouth 
of the dragon, that old serpent the devil, said, All men 
are created equal, and women are equal to men, and chil- 
dren are equal to women. All men are naturally good, 
and nothing but the evil customs and institutions of the 
world make men do evil. If every man was free to 
choose, every man would choose good, and therefore is 
universal suffrage the cure for all the ills that flesh is 
heir to. The unclean spirit out of the mouth of the beast 
said, God has made the world for the benefit of the few, — 
kings and aristocracies. He has appointed these to make 
slaves out of the millions of their fellow-men, and to use 
them for their own pleasure. 

And the unclean spirit out of the mouth of the false 
prophet said, God has appointed priestcraft to make slaves 
out of the souls and bodies of men, and to rule over them 
forever. And these did make war with the Lamb, and the 
Lamb did overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and 
King of kings, and they that are with him are called and 
chosen and faithful. 

And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse ; 
a.nd he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, 
and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His 
eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many 
crowns ; and he had a name written, that no man knew 
but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture 



368 ^J^^ GREAT TRIAL. 

dipped in blood : and his name is called The Word of 
God. And the armies which were in heaven followed 
him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen white and 
clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that 
with it he should smite the nations : and he shall rule 
them with a rod of iron ; and he treadeth the wine-press 
of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he 
hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written 
King of kings and Lord of lords. 

And I saw an angel standing in the sun ; and he cried 
with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the 
midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together 
unto the supper of the great God. That ye may eat the 
flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of 
mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit 
on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, 
both small and great. And I saw the beasts, and the 
kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together 
to make war against him that sat on the horse, and 
against his army. And the beast was taken, and with 
him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, 
which which he deceived them that had received the 
mark of the beast, and them that worship his image. 
These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning 
with brimstone. And the> remnant were slain with the 
sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword pro- 
ceeded out of his mouth ; and all the fowls were filled 
with their flesh. I looked, and the kingdoms of Europe 
and her empires had passed away. Her kings and aris- 
tocracies had fallen, and their power was gone. 

And I saw the son of Erin go back from his adopted 
country to the Green Emerald Isle, — the home of his 
fathers, and the land of his love. Oppression cursed and 
blighted that beautiful land no more, for the oppression 
was dead. Its meadows was greener than before, and 
the shamrock bloomed and shed a sweeter fragrance, for 
it too had breathed the air of liberty and truth. And I 
saw the German go back to the Fatherland, and there 
too the Sun of Righteousness had arisen with healing in 
his wings. The mildew and the blight no longer blasted 
his vine-clad hills. The vintage, loaded with its juicy 
fruit, *' reeled to earth purple and gushing." 



THE SEVENTH WITNESS. 369 

And I saw mighty wave roll from the Western World 
and sweep over the arid plains of Africa, and her wilder- 
ness and solitary place were glad and her deserts bloomed 
and blossomed like the rose. For that wave had borne 
back to the bosom of Africa millions of her children re- 
claimed from barbarism and educated in the truths of the 
Christian civilization. Ay, her children who bad wit- 
nessed the last judgments of Heaven, — the last great 
battle of Christianity and her final victory over the world. 

And I saw the children of Israel from every nation and 
country, and kindred and clime, wending their way back 
to the land of Canaan, the land which God gave to his 
servant Jacob to be an inheritance for his children for- 
ever. And I saw the walls of Jerusalem built up, and 
they shall fall no more, for Messiah, their Prince, has 
come to rule and reign forever. The first shall be last, 
and the last shall be first. 

And I heard a voice from the judgment-throne which 
said, And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem 
of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots : and 
the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of 
wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and 
might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the 
Lord ; and shall make him of quick understanding in the 
fear of the Lord ; and he shall not judge after the sight 
of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears. 
But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and re- 
prove with equity for the meek of the earth ; and he 
shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with 
the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And 
righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faith- 
fulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell 
with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the 
kid ; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling to- 
gether; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow 
and the bear shall feed ; their young ones shall lie down 
together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And 
the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp and the 
weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. 
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain ; 
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as 
Q* 



372 ^^J^- (^lit-^AT TRIAL. 

and bring them into their own land. And I will make 
them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel ; 
and one king shall be kin.s* to them all ; and they shall 
be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into 
two kingdoms any more at all. Neither shall they defile 
themselves any more with their idols nor with their de- 
testable things, nor with any of their transgressions; but 
I will save them out of all their dwelling places, wherein 
they have sinned, and will cleanse them j so shall they 
be my people, and I will be their God. 

And David my servant shall be king over them ; and 
they all shall have one shepherd ; they shall also walk in 
my judgments, and observe my statutes and do them. 

And they shall dwell in the land that I have given 
unto Jacob, my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt ; 
and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, 
and their children's children forever; and my servant 
David shall be their prince forever. 

Moreover, I will make a covenant of peace with then., 
it shall be an everlasting covenant with them ; and I will 
place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary 
in the midst of them for evermore My tabernacle also 
shall be with them ; yea, I will be their God, and they 
shall be my people. 

And the heathen shall know that I, the Lord, do sanc- 
tify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of 
them for evermore. 

And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having 
the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his 
hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, 
which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand 
years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him 
up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the 
nations no more till the thousand years should be ful- 
filled ; and after that he must be loosed a little season. 

And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judg- 
ment was given unto them ; and I saw the souls of them 
that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the 
word of God, and which had not worshiped the beast, 
neither his image, neither had received his mark upon 
their foreheads or in their hands ; and they lived and 
reigned with Christ a thousand years. 



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